For about an hour, Michael A. Maroun Elementary School fourth graders became honorary members of the six nations that make up the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.
In the midst of an academic unit on the Haudenosaunee people, the students represented the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca and Tuscarora nations as part of the recent Merry-Go-Round Playhouse’s interactive performance of “There Once was a Longhouse.”
Students sat around make-shift camp fires where they became acclimated with Native American customs and traditions.
The school’s intermediate cafeteria was transformed into a Haudenosaunee cultural experience, with a longhouse replica on stage.
Separated into the six nations, students learned about the lifestyles of the Haudenosaunee people.
The three Playhouse actors invited select students to participate in a “game of skill” where they pretended to be hunters sneaking up on a deer.
The students also cheered and clapped as they learned traditional Haudenosaunee dance and song.
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Perhaps they should recruit “real” Haudenosaunee people to educate the students as they are the ones who live the life daily and are not acting! There are enought Native territories throughout NYS that would be happy to help. Just a thought