Home for Big Drum opens in Sawyer

The Big Drum has a new home.

Friday morning, members of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and guests gathered for the opening of a new ceremonial hall, Gimanidoowichigemin Gwaaba'iganing, in Sawyer. It was built specifically to house the Big Drum.

The drum is named Nimishomis, which translates to "my grandfather."

The hall is new, but the drum and the songs and ceremonies that surround it are very old.

Band member and Sawyer resident Vern Northrup said his great-great-grandfather "dreamt this drum that belongs here," Northrup said. "He dreamt six of them and there's only one left. My brother and I are the keepers of that drum."

A tour of the brand-new building at 3276 Moorhead Road reveals a commercial-grade kitchen, a space for nursing mothers, bathrooms and storage, but the main space is a large round room with a domed wooden ceiling crowned with an octagonal skylight.

A large round metal plate covers the spot where the Big Drum will sit. When it is lifted, it reveals dirt underneath. The drum should be in contact with the earth, Northrup said.

It is a sacred space for dancing, drumming and gathering. The drum wasn't there Friday, or there would have been no photos or recordings allowed.

Between ceremonies, the drum will go home with Vern or Russ. The brothers and a large group of other men and women are part of the Big Drum society, committed to caring for the Big Drum and supporting its ceremonies. Most Ojibwe villages around the state are part of one, Northrup said.

In addition to Fond du Lac Band members, descendants and other guests, a number of other drumkeepers came for the opening.

The oldest drumkeeper there was Joe Nayquonabe, of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe. He's been a drumkeeper for 70 years.

"Sometimes people say they put people in that position because they need help, they need the drum," he said. "These are lifetime positions."

There are six Big Drums in Mille Lacs, where the tradition never wavered.

"The U.S. outlawed them, people couldn't practice the Big Drum," Nayquonabe said. "Mille Lacs said F.U. Our elders, my uncle believed the only people that could take things away are the ones that gave them to us, and that's the Creator. A lot went underground, but Mille Lacs never did."

The grandfather drum in Sawyer is a little different, Vern Northrup explained.

"This one's different because this one came through the bloodline; the other drums came through when the Sioux wanted us to stop killing them," he said. "It was a way to make peace. They gave us the drum, and they gave us the ceremony that went with it, all the positions and all the songs."

A news release from the Fond du Lac Band said the new hall marks a "significant milestone" with dedicated space for the ceremonial big drum and a sanctuary for wellness and healing.

"It takes care of us. It takes our prayers, it heals us," Northrup said. "That's the most important part of this drum and everything that's going on: we're healing. That brings back all the old medicines and the spirits and the things they brought to us, the miracles, to give us this beautiful place we call home."

The first ceremonial dance to be held in the new drum hall is scheduled for Sept. 20-21.

Want to know more? Read Jottings by Janis on Page 7 for a column on the return of the Big Drum to Fond du Lac and what it means to her.