Native American Literature of North Carolina
N C L R ONLINE
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Both It’s Lumbee Homecoming, Y’all! and Whoz Ya People? are about different types of homecomings. It’s Lumbee Homecoming, Y ’all! focuses on Nakoma, the book’s eight-year-old Lumbee protagonist, as he excitedly describes to his white friend, Spencer, the joys he anticipates at Lumbee Homecoming, the annual event that takes place in Pembroke, North Carolina, each July. Lumbee historian Malinda Maynor Lowery explains the significance of the fifty-three-year Homecoming tradition:
For a Lumbee boy like Nakoma, grape ice cream, the firetruck that tosses out candy during the parade, riding in golf carts, the strength and beauty of the powwow dancers, and the fireworks show are all highlights of Lumbee Homecoming.
The local [Robeson County] population swells by untold thousands for a wonderful cacophony of family reunions, beauty pageants, art exhibits, book readings, a powwow, a car show, and a gospel sing, among other events. Plenty of outsiders visit because it is simply one of the most entertaining happenings of the year in southeastern North Carolina. But it is far more family reunion than festival.7
ART ©2020 BY RAVEN DIAL-STANLEY AND EVYNN RICHARDSON
In Nakoma’s description of this atmosphere to Spencer, the authors effectively use the device of Nakoma explaining to his non-Lumbee friend the delights of Lumbee Homecoming to simultaneously celebrate this annual cultural event and to offer a model of inclusive, cross-cultural friendship between these eight-year-old boys. The book opens with Spencer asking Nakoma what his plans are for the upcoming weekend as the boys play at the park on “a hot July day.” Nakoma replies that he and his Grandma Etta will be “spending the whole weekend together” and “going to Lumbee Homecoming! All I can think about is my grandma, golf carts and grape ice cream. Good gah, I can’t wait!”8 When Spencer asks what Lumbee Homecoming is, Nakoma regales him with stories of the wonders of Homecoming, each of which is a cultural touchstone for Lumbee people and for all who attend Lumbee Homecoming. For a Lumbee boy like Nakoma, grape ice cream, the firetruck that tosses out candy during the parade, riding in golf carts, the strength and beauty of the powwow dancers, and the fireworks show are all highlights of Lumbee Homecoming. Grandma Etta likes her lemonade and a collard sandwich, a beloved Lumbee delicacy, and Nakoma likes his funnel cake (7). All of these events take place in the embrace of family and cultural community, the overarching theme of Locklear and Pacheco’s book. Homecoming for Nakoma, as for so many Lumbee people, is an “annual reunification celebration” (Lowery xii ). Nakoma tells Spencer that at the fireworks show, the final event of Homecoming, “Grandma always pulls me in close and Uncle Jerry smiles. This is the best part of the day” (13). The book
ABOVE Nakoma and Spencer, an
illustration by Raven Dial-Stanley and Evynn Richardson for It’s Lumbee Homecoming, Y’all!
7
Malinda Maynor Lowery, The Lumbee Indians: An American Struggle (U of North Carolina P, 2018) 40; subsequently cited parenthetically.
8
Leslie Locklear and Christina Pacheco, It’s Lumbee Homecoming, Y’all!: Nakoma’s Greatest Tradition, illus. by Raven Dial-Stanley and Evynn Richardson (Independently published, 2020) 1; subsequently cited parenthetically.