Rattlemaking workshop draws students, area residents

by Meredith MacMillan
For The Post

A small group of Ohio University students and area residents sit around an arrangement of tables. Some are whittling sticks, some are cutting rawhide and others are filling their rattle heads with sand. The air is filled with chatter, but all are immersed in their work.

A gentle man with two braids framing his face walks around and helps the workshop participants. He notices a girl using a particular knife to carve her stick.

“I made this one. I’m a man of all trades,” he jokes with a smile.

Wendell Humphrey, a Shoshone-Bannok Native American from Glouster, led a rattle-making workshop last night at Lindley Cultural Center. The workshop was a part of American Indian Heritage Week, sponsored by the Native Peoples Awareness Coalition.

A variety of participants came to the event, such as Caroline Bernards, a ninth grader from Amesville, who came with her mother and her mother’s friend. They attended Tuesday’s speech by Manny Two Feathers and plan on going to the musical performance by duo Ga-Li on Friday as part of Caroline’s home schooled education.

The rattle-making workshop was free to participants because of funding from Student Activities Commission, the funding arm of OU Student Senate. Participants whittled sticks for the handles, and then cut and sewed rawhide together for the heads of the rattles. Then they stuffed the heads full of moist sand so that as the rawhide dried it could retain its form. After the rawhide dries, participants can remove the sand and fill it with corn kernels, rice, stones, or whatever else they choose.

“This is the first rattle workshop we’ve done,” said Sarah Conley, an OU junior from Pittsburgh who is the NPAC President. In the past they have done beading and dream catcher workshops.

Conley, who is not Native American, says that NPAC members do not have to be Native American to join. “We invite and welcome many traditions,” she said.

Debbie Love, an Athens resident, has been involved for eight years with the NPAC.

She met Humphrey at a festival years ago, and the two have been friends since. She often goes to his home in Glouster for sweat lodges, a traditional healing and reflection ceremony.

“I’ve always been interested in history and in native history,” she said.

Living in southeastern Ohio, there is a lot of room for involvement because of the area’s history, she said.