Windsor Grandparent Shares Culture With Students
Students at Windsor Elementary School receive a lesson in some native American custom from Ralph Moisa, Jr., a member of the Yaqui nation.
Besides the usual tribe of schoolchildren, Windsor Elementary’s playground became a campground for the Plains Indians on Monday when a tipi (or teepee) big enough to hold three classes at a time was erected in the grassy field behind the school.
Ralph Moisa Jr. and his wife Carol have two grandchildren attending Windsor (Maddox is in kindergarten and Madelyn is a 4th grader) so where better to set up their traveling exhibit about Native American heritage and culture?
Carol is of European descent but Ralph is a full-blooded member of the Yaqui nation. That’s as opposed to Yucky, the students were told, which is “something you step in.” The Moisas live in West Des Moines but have traveled to schools far and wide, including Harvard University, seeking to “mend the sacred hoop,” by advocating for understanding between all cultures and a restoration of Mother Earth’s natural balances.
In 2000 they founded an annual event called the White Eagle Multicultural Pow Wow toward those ends. White Eagle is a reference to their son, Ralph Moisa III, who was electrocuted and killed trying to rescue a red-tailed hawk caught on a power line in 1995. This year’s Pow Wow is scheduled for September 16-18 at the Iowa State Fairgrounds.
Grade by grade, guests were welcomed to the campsite that only took about an hour to erect despite a tipi that stands more than 20 feet high and is roomy enough that all three sections of 2nd graders and their teachers were able to fit inside for some storytelling followed by a Q&A that could have gone on and on had time permitted.
Ralph shared from one of his children’s books, Great Eagle and Small One, and performed Native American arrangements of standards familiar to his audience, including Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on a handmade wooden flute and tom-tom. For the drumming he asked for volunteer accompanists and every hand went up. Both the storytelling and music were liberally spiced with his deadpan humor (“This shell of a snapping turtle can be used as a wash basin or as a shield when I am in battle with my mother-in-law.”). The kids got him, laughing in all the right places.
Many varieties of animal skin were on display inside the tipi and it was explained that they all have names. The coyote hide is Wiley. The skunk skin is Pepe LaPew. “We name the animals even though they are dead in gratitude for what they have given us,” Moisa explained. “They give us food and clothing and tools. Nothing is wasted.”
The tipi felt authentic even though it’s made of canvas instead of bison hides and despite the lawn chair and Bee-Bop’s drink cups outside the front door. The 21st century accents took nothing away from what otherwise looked and sounded like a trip back in time. Long before there ever was a Windsor who knows how many bison ran free where kids do now? Or how many tipis dotted grounds dotted now by playthings? Monday afternoon you could visualize plenty of both.
