Native American Festival & Shad Fest

5th Annual Drums Along The Hudson: A Native American Festival and Shad Fest
Sunday, Apr 29, 2007
11:00 am - 6:00 pm
Manhattan

"Drums Along The Hudson celebrates the spirit of the drum that is the heart, culture and tradition of the Native American people. The event features a powerful get-together of mesmerizing drumming from around the world and includes intertribal social dances like the Round Dance, the Iroquois Smoke Dance, and the Jingle Dance. International foods, Native American crafts and artwork will be for sale.

Shad Fest celebrates the annual return of spawning shad to the Hudson River. Shad Planking demonstrations by Chris Letts of the Hudson River Foundation and free tastings are featured. "Planking " is a Native American cooking method taught to the European settlers. Shad, considered a delicacy, are the only fish that the D.E.C. permits to be commercially caught from the Hudson River because their life cycle allows them to remain PCB-free and, therefore, safe to eat."

Yesterday, I took a journey (and I really mean journey!) to Inwood Park in Upper Manhattan for the Native American Festival & Shad Fest. In what took, like, forever to finally reach my destination, I actually ended up having a good time.

This is the 5th annual festival, and its infancy kind of shows. The representation of tribes was minimal at best. The Iroquois nation made up the bulk of the tribes there, followed by some South American and Caribbean tribes. I felt like there should have been more US and Canada tribes present, and I wondered who was doing the PR for this event. The Algonquin nation is in New England and could have made their presence known too. I hope that in the future, we do begin to see many more tribes featured at this festival. After all, according to the 2000 census, there are over 40,000 Native Americans residing in New York City.

One area was set up for vendors, a lot of it was focused on arts and crafts. I didn't find the right kind of bear (muwin) pendant I was looking for.

Photos here.