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This article offers a conversation between two friends, neighbors, and peers, Andre Strongbearheart Gaines, Jr.(Nipmuc) and Carlos Uriona,who collaborate with Double Edge Theater, a cultural cooperative and ensemble collective based in Western Massachusetts in the small town (population 1,695) of Ashfield, that “assumes responsibility for art making, visioning, and survival needs of the theatre,” and Ohketeau Cultural Center, an autonomous place for Indigenous culture that centers Nipmuc teachings.
Carlos Uriona (CU): When did you realize that you didn’t want to live in this system where we live or how we live? How would you describe it, and then, what would you do now?
Andre Strongbearheart (AS): I don’t think that there is an actual time when that happened inside of me. But it took me a long time. I spent 17 years in the construction field, in the dog-eat-dog world, climbing up these particular ladders that are meaningless and create gentrification. There’s a lot that was going on inside of me. You know, what society tells me, “Oh, you’re moving up the ladder, you’re in a good class, you’re making x amount of dollars!” It’s the story of the frog, you know…
CU: Stay in the pot until the heat kills you.
AS: Yeah. Some years ago, I grew up around power. I grew up around my people, but I didn’t want to take part in it. I lived a crazy life when I was young. Then, when I got sober and in recovery, things started to get clear inside of me. And I think that’s part of it. What happened is that’s part of the system of drugs and alcoholism, like, it puts this cloud in our people’s minds.
I was trying to work full time, do side work on the side, and do all my traditional work somehow in between. I was probably just as busy as I am now, but somehow, also living society’s lifestyle, too. There are a lot of things that happened, and for me, it was the ceremonies that woke me up, being able to just break away and go to these ceremonies. These ceremonies started to unveil these things within me that were already lying dormant.
CU: What ceremonies are you talking about?
AS: Yeah, some of the ceremonies, I mean, are ceremonies that were illegal until 1978: Ceremony of the Sundance, Ceremony of the Sweat Lodge, Water Ceremonies, Harpoon Ceremonies, these Pipe Ceremonies….All these ceremonies will start waking you up more and more. And I got to a point where things became really clear, and I didn’t know why I was walking and doing the things that I was doing. So, I started to gravitate more towards the things that fed my spirit, rather than the flesh and the monetary things that were created around me.
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