Paiute tribe youth share restoration story at Utah Shakespearean Festival

CEDAR CITY —Youth members of the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah have a story to share, and this year, they are sharing it at the Utah Shakespearean Festival.

This is the sixth year the tribe has performed at the festival, and each year has brought different performances. Tribal youth coordinator Everson Nakai told KSL that each performance over the years has had similar purposes rooted in strengthening the tribe and educating the public.

"In the past, we've had the youth do various Pow Wow dance performances," Nakai said. "We had our youth drum group perform, and they'd play flutes and sing. This year, we wanted to change it up."

In April, the tribe celebrated 46 years of restoration as a federally recognized Native American Tribe after having that status terminated in 1954. The tribe wasn't restored until 1980, when President Jimmy Carter signed the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah Restoration Act.

With that in mind, the tribe decided to create a festival program that showcased their journey to restoration.

"We wanted the youth to tell the story of the tribe regarding its history so they could teach their neighbors and the community," Nakai said. "We wanted them to tell who the tribe is in their own words. We wanted them to say, 'This is what happened to the tribe, this is how restoration took place and this is where we are now.'"

The Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah has five constituent bands in southern Utah, including the Cedar, Indian Peaks, Kanosh, Koosharem and Shivwits Bands. During the termination in 1954, all but the Cedar Band were terminated. However, with no designated reservation area, that band experienced similar effects as the others.

"We lost culture, our language, our history, our land, our hunting and gathering places, our homelands where we lived, and a lot of our elders were dying due to disease and lack of health care," a member of the tribe wrote in a document published on the tribe's website. "Our artisans who were rich in cultural arts and crafts began to diminish. ... We are strangers in our own land."

Tribal youth are reenacting the tribe's journey at several of the festival's green shows this season, including two performances this month. All performances are free to the public.

"The first night they performed, they started a circle dance and invited people to come up and dance with them," Festival executive managing director Michael Bahr told KSL. "It's not up on the stage, but it's on the grass. They wind through the grass like a snake and it becomes this huge circle.

"I remember looking across that circle and seeing little kids dancing," he added. "Older patrons were dancing and members of our Green Show who were not performing that night were dancing with them, too. It was really cool."

Nakai said that as he has seen the youth perform, they have gained confidence, which is something he hoped would happen.

"We want to encourage the youth to try new things and not to be afraid," Nakai said. "It's our chance to encourage them to public speak and take on these leadership roles. I also think it's very important for the native youth to have that sense of identity and who they are and where they came from.

"When they wrote the play, a lot of it came from them and what they learned from their families," he added. After the first show, several people approached the youth and expressed their feelings and gratitude to the youth for sharing their culture because they didn't know much about the Paiute Tribe."

The tribe has two more Greenshow performances on Aug. 15 and 29, at 7:10 p.m. at the Ashton Family Greenshow Commons on the Southern Utah University campus in Cedar City.

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