Highlights Archives
Black Hawk Powwow Grounds Added to Register
May is Historic Preservation and Archaeology Month and the Historical Society is using the occasion to highlight Wisconsin properties listed in the National Register of Historic Places. As the month-long celebration draws to a close, we would like to highlight another recent addition to the National Register of Historic Places, the Blackhawk Powwow Grounds in Jackson County. Listed in the National Register on March 28, 2007, the Blackhawk Powwow Grounds were nominated as a traditional cultural property by the Ho-Chunk Nation.
The National Register is the official national list of historic properties in America worthy of preservation and is maintained by the National Park Service in the U.S. Department of the Interior. In the National Register program, traditional cultural properties are defined as properties with an "association with cultural practices or beliefs of a living community that are rooted in that community's history, and are important in maintaining the continuing cultural identity of the community." The Black Hawk Powwow grounds, given to the Ho-Chunk by the Andrew Black Hawk family, have been in continual use by the Ho-Chunk Wazijaci people of Wisconsin since 1896 and possibly as early as the 1860s. This use has been documented through a variety of sources including Ho-Chunk oral history and photographs of the ceremonies from the 1880s to 1920s in the Society's Charles Van Schaick collection. The Ho-Chunk used the grounds for the Big Drum/Dream Dance ceremony that emerged among Wisconsin communities of Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Potawatomi and Ojibwe in the late 19th century as well as the Heylushka warrior-society and Grass Dance ceremonies practiced by Native American communities across the plains. The Heylushka warrior-society ceremonies that continue to this day honor veterans and the grounds include a historical marker commemorating Mitchell Red Cloud, who was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for service in Korea.
Another important function of the powwow grounds was to create a community center for dispersed Ho-Chunk people in the late 19 and early 20 centuries. The Federal government denied the Ho-Chunk a central reservation because they refused to comply with removal from their traditional homelands, leaving them with small settlements scattered throughout western and central Wisconsin. Therefore, regular gatherings at the powwow grounds became important as a "Homecoming Dance" or annual reunion during which the communities could socialize and perform religious and ceremonial rites. In addition to reuniting scattered communities, the grounds also became the center of tribal government — a place where they could hold political meetings and host representatives from other tribal nations and surrounding European American communities.
The designation of the Black Hawk powwow grounds as a traditional cultural property illustrates the importance of historic places that connect people to the past while preserving and continuing community traditions into the future. You can search the National Register of Historic Places to learn more about the thousands of Wisconsin properties listed there. And if you haven't found an opportunity to celebrate historic preservation and archaeology this month, there are still events you can catch this week and through early June. See our events calendar for more details.
:: Posted May 30, 2007
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