The Menominee Nation will celebrate the return of the sturgeon with a feast and celebration pow-wow Saturday at Menominee Indian High School, N500 State Highway 47, Keshena.
Grand entries will be held at 1 p.m. and 7 p.m., with the feast at 5 p.m.
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has agreed to provide the Menominee Nation with the 15 lake sturgeon for the annual cultural event. The revival of the sturgeon feast and celebration began in 1973 when tribal leaders initiated talks with the DNR for sturgeon to be brought to the reservation for the celebration.
The annual spring migration of the Lake Winnebago sturgeon to Keshena Falls was halted when dams were built on the Wolf River near Shawano in the late 1800s. Prior to the dams, the sturgeon for centuries migrated from the Lake Winnebago water system to their traditional spawning grounds at Keshena Falls.
The Menominee people would wait for the sturgeon to return after the long winter months to replenish their food supplies. Ceremonies and dancing would follow the first catch of sturgeon, and the significance of the sturgeon would be celebrated. The sturgeon was also used in preparation of traditional medicine and other ceremonial uses of the tribe.
The Menominee Sturgeon Clan is a sub-group under the ancestral Bear Clan.
The celebration pow-wow will feature singing, honor ceremony, sturgeon ceremonial offering and Menominee ceremonial dances. Ron Corn Jr. (Moshaquit), a young man who is fluent speaker of the Menominee language, will provide the invocation for the opening of the pow-wow. A welcoming address will be provided by Menominee Tribal Chairwoman Laurie Boivin, and various tribal members will speak of the traditional significance of the sturgeon to the Menominee people.
The host drum for this year’s pow-wow will be the Ga’taase Singers from the Mohican Nation. The Ga’taase have become a well-known group of singers in the pow-wow community. Some of the invited drum groups are the Smokeytown, Wolf River, Five Clan and the Young Chiefs.
The feast will consist of smoked sturgeon, corn soup, wild rice, maple sugar and other traditional Menominee food. Before the feast, ceremonial dancers will perform the centuries old Menominee fish dance in honor of the sturgeon’s return to the reservation.
This will be the 21st anniversary of the revival of the sturgeon feast and celebration. Although many of the original tribal members and leaders who were the first to revive this ceremony have passed into the Spirit World they will be remembered on this day for their unselfish effort and their legacy will live on for future generations of the tribe.
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