Jacks Valley students celebrate Valley Native American heritage

Meneley sixth-grader Teena Simpson skipped school, so she could go to another school and teach kids how to gamble.

But it wasn't the kind of gambling most Nevadans are used to. Teena, 11, is a Washoe American Indian, and she was teaching her peers at Jacks Valley Elementary School an ancient Paiute stick game, in which striped pieces of wood are dice, and payments are made in willow sticks, not cash.

"I'm helping the kids learn how to play, and it's pretty cool," Teena said Oct. 3. "I wanted to come over and do this because it's part of my culture."

It was Jacks Valley Elementary's turn to host Wa-Pai-Shone, the annual celebration of Washoe, Paiute and Shoshone cultures that is held at a different elementary school each year.

Washoe Tribe Education Director Sherry Smokey said Teena and five other Meneley sixth-graders of Washoe descent volunteered to help.

"They should be feeling real proud of themselves," Smokey said. "They're learning more about their own culture as they do this."

Jacks Valley sixth-graders Jacob Sanchez and Roberto Caballero played the Paiute stick game and found it more challenging than the stone jacks game they had played earlier.

"Stone jacks was challenging, but it was easier than this game (stick game)," Jacob said.

Students also explored a Galisdongal set up on the playground.

Made from thick pieces of tree bark, the tepee-like structures would keep Native Americans warm during the winter months, said Washoe educational advisor Lori Pasqua.

"They didn't have the schools or the buildings you guys have," Pasqua said. "They would carry the wood on their backs to make the structures."

"That's crazy," said 6-year-old Patrick Larsen.

Patrick had the chance to make his own miniature Galisdongal.

"I wish I could live inside one. I think that would be really cool," he said.

Gerald Hunter of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe described his people's tradition of harvesting pine nuts. He told students the natives would use large sticks to knock the nuts from pinon pine trees. They would gather the nuts and use reed baskets to sift the good ones from the bad ones.

"You could cook them whole, or grind them into flour," Hunter said.

First-grader Haiden Sneed said he's never eaten pine nuts but would like to try them.

"I bet they taste like chicken," he said.

Inside the school, Clarissa Horse, 14, and Fawn Clarissa, 29, were performing a traditional Native American dance. They moved their moccasin feet to the soft beat of Indian drums and invoked an otherworldly trance.

Maradan Moyle, an 11-year-old Carson City Paiute, performed a fancy shawl dance mimicking the movement of a butterfly. Her bright pink and purple shawl fluttered like wings as she pirouetted across the floor.

"It's so beautiful the way they dance," said third-grader Sammy Breeden.

Sammy was wearing her own pink headdress with a bird feather near her ear.

"My grandma helped me make it," she said. "We thought it would be a good thing for today."