By Polina Smith
The Indigenous Red Market, featuring Indigenous artists, entrepreneurs, and vendors, is a special place that brings community and creativity together. The market, which is free to enter and co-sponsored by Native American Heritage Commission (NAHC) and the Intertribal Friendship House, first launched on the streets of Oakland back in 2018. From then, it continued on Sundays of every month until COVID-19 sent the market into a 14-month hiatus.
Photo Credit: @indigenousredmarket
On July 21, the Indigenous Red Market hosted its second event since the forced hiatus. In the lot along East 14th street between Derby and 31st Avenue, the rhythmic drumming of Native musicians filled the air. Vendors sold artisan crafts as people performed Native dances. COVID protocols were closely followed at the recent event—temperatures were checked upon entrance and masks were required.
Despite the looming shadow of the pandemic, evidenced by the masked faces, the unmistakable feeling of community at the event was not stifled.
Noah Gallo, Human Services Coordinator for NAHC, is the co-founder of the Indigenous Red Market. Gallo said that his hope for the event was to create a space for the Native community to sell art and connect with their culture. Because Native people experience healing while participating in crafts like beading and dancing, Gallo says the space can also act as a place of holistic well-being. In Oakland Voices, he shares that the events are, “...a unique opportunity to provide a stronger, culturally informed approach to Indigenous health and well-being.”
The Indigenous Red Market is, at its core, a place where people from all tribes can come together and connect. That a market dedicated to the advancement and promotion of Native businesses can thrive in this country is no easy feat, considering the torrid years of history upon European settler-colonization of tribal land. Generations upon generations of tribes have been separated, oppressed, and murdered; beyond the centuries of unimaginable scope of cruelty inflicted upon Native populations, the lineage, oral histories, languages, rites, and cultural touchstones of entire tribes have been erased. This history underscores the importance of communal events for the living record of Native descendants; with such a tenuous, fraught connection to their past, Native Americans have leaned upon each other to create a shared narrative, something that the Indigenous Red Market has helped to cohere.
Photo Credit: @indigenousredmarket
The ability to proudly celebrate Native culture was, in the past, stripped away from Native people, so the market is particularly meaningful in light of the colonization that attempted to silence the community in the past. Crystal Wahpepah (Kickapoo), chef of Wahpepah’s Kitchen, brings her cuisine to the Red Market, selling dishes like Kickapoo Chili, blueberry bison meatballs, and blackberry sage tea. “It is healing to see the joy on the faces of the youth and elders,” she said. “Plus the jewelry, music, art, and dancers all in one place.” Chef Wahpepah sold out of all of her offerings at the last market, so it appears her food is healing as well.
Several vendors at the market focus directly on healing in the form of herbal medicine. Batul True Heart (Yo’eme/Yaqui), a trained community herbalist, worked at a table labeled Maaso Medicina, selling small bottles filled with herbal flower medicine to treat various ailments. True Heart said of the products, “This medicine heals ancestral, generational, and personal pain.” True heart also offered medicines for cleansing negative energy and healing sadness and loss. Many of the herbs used in the products were grown right in True Heart’s backyard.
Photo Credit: @indigenousredmarket
The pandemic brought so much fear and disconnection to the world, but the Indigenous Red Market represents a coming together after months of isolation. As the pandemic winds down, the Market provides a space for the community to engage in healing practices of all kinds, reconnecting with culture and each other.