Lenape Gourd Dance Society

By Bruce Martin
From April 2014 issue of Delaware Indian News

Recently I have been approached by a few tribal members wondering what happened to the Lenape Gourd Dance Society. I have wondered that myself. The past few times that I have seen the Lenape Gourd Dance Society, there were only three or four members dancing. I remember back in the day there were a lot of us.

I would like this to be a call to all Lenapes who would like to revive the Lenape Gourd Dance Society. I have talked with John Sumpter, who is the Director of this Society, and offered to help him recruit past members to rejoin and to search for new members. I think as a Lenape, when we have been asked to be the Host Gourd Dance group at a dance, it would be nice to bring more than two or three dancers.

Having served on various pow-wow committees, there usually will not be a lot of money thrown at Gourd Dance groups, but we can get organized and try to do our best to represent. We are not in this to make money, but rather to dance, have a good time, and represent our heritage the best that we can.

With modern technology we should be able to communicate with each other, travel to more places and represent the Lenape Gourd Dance Society as it should be, honorably and respectfully. As John Sumpter told me, “The society was formed with the blessings of the Arapahoe Star Hawk Society back in 1995 with the efforts of Don and Betty Wilson. This blessing was given by the leader at the time, Stanly Sleeper, with the understanding that we would follow their guidelines as close as possible, but still be able to mold it to fit our group. If we get enough interest, we can get meetings started every quarter and do our initiations at the Copan dance. Don would like that. Put our beginnings in the article so that people will know that we started in a proper way and did not just get together and call ourselves a gourd dance group. Since the Delawares are not a pow-wow people and these ways are adopted by us, this will be important to know. I, myself, made several trips to El Reno to talk to Stanly and learn more about this way.

I relied on Don a lot but there were times that he said I should go talk to Stanly.” This organization is not sanctioned by the Tribe, but is a separate organization. If anyone would be interested in joining, or rejoining, please contact us with your interest or information.

John Sumpter (918) 766-5592
longwalkerlongwalk@sbcglobal.net

Bruce Martin