The Kenaitze Indian Tribe will host inter-tribal drumming lessons this Friday from noon to 1 p.m. The lessons will be held at the tribe’s K’beq’ Cultural Heritage Interpretive Site near Cooper Landing as part of its summer cultural workshops. While inter-tribal drumming is not local to the Kenai Peninsula, the tribe has embraced it in recent years from tribes in the southwestern United States.
Michael Bernard is the tribe’s cultural resources supervisor.
“We’ve adopted it and use it as a way to get social with people and bring folks together for a positive experience and teach them some songs,” he said.
The tribe has hosted multiple cultural workshops this summer. One focused on Dena’ina song and dance, and another on the traditional harvest of moose. The drumming workshop is the site’s last cultural event of the season.
“I’m hoping when people come and visit us out at K’beq’, they will take away from their experience memories of doing something unique, something that they may not have had the opportunity to do or learn before in other places," Bernard said. "The things that we offer at K’beq’, we are expecting that folks probably won’t have the opportunity to do much of that elsewhere on the peninsula.”
The tribe is still assembling its schedule of cultural workshops for next summer. But, members hopes to build on this summer’s workshops. The K’beq’ Cultural Heritage Interpretive Site is open 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. through Friday.
