Photos by Jack McNeel Teressa Martinez, Jolene Tonasket (with her 3-week old infant), and Annette Wallette are all Spokane tribal ladies who were on the committee to organize the Pink Shawl Powwow.

Monica Wallette, Annette’s daughter, wanted to help with the pow wow. She had lost her grandmother to breast cancer and has aunts who are survivors. She explained the symbolism of the shawl. “To wrap around a woman, it’s a symbol of a woman’s strength and their pride and culture. We use shawls to wrap up our babies and protect our babies. The whole symbolism of the pink shawl ceremony, knowing that shawls have a big significance that is not just material with fringe, it’s way more than that. It really is a sign of pride and strength.”

Sharon Zanca is a survivor who received a shawl. “I’m really thankful that I’m still alive. I want to thank this girl, Monica, for putting all that love around me when she put that shawl on me. I thank everybody who had anything to do with it.”

Zanca also encouraged everyone to, “Pray hard that your mothers, your aunts, your sisters, your grandmothers won’t get this awful, horrible disease. We want to wipe it out so nobody else has to go through the suffering.”

Monica was one of many from her family who prepared the meal for the 200 plus people. “We had macaroni and deer meat, we call it ‘Indian macaroni,’” she laughed. “It’s one of my favorites; lots of smoked meat. Cheryl Butterfly did all the smoked meat in honor of her aunt who passed away with breast cancer. Lots of people brought desserts in. There were cakes made that looked like the pink ribbon. It was really nice.”

Wellpinit has been identified as a community with a high cancer rate. Some feel it may have something to do with the uranium mines that were once actively worked on the reservation. “We never had cancer before this mine came in and now we have all kinds of cancer,” said Marie Samuels, a breast cancer survivor. “My husband died of leukemia.”

All the shawls were given out; Annette Wallette explained why they didn’t want to hold any over. “One of the things my aunt and my mom taught us when we used to do dinners for funerals was to get rid of everything at that dinner, the flour, sugar, or whatever was leftover – to get rid of it. We don’t keep it to wait for the next person to pass away. I wasn’t about to leave any shawls there waiting for someone else to be diagnosed.”

Following the shawl ceremony there was a round dance, all standing together and dancing around the drum. Many small items had been donated to bring attention to breast cancer and these were distributed including teddy bears for the little ones. It was open to the public and some shawls were given to members of other tribes and two or three also were to non-Native women. “Our goal was to reach out to all women,” Wallette said.

Plans are already underway for next year. “We’re applying for continuation of the Komen grant,” Martinez said. “But we’re not going to stop our services or this plan if we don’t get that grant. We’re not putting the pow wow and honoring contingent on receiving the grant. We’ll do our own fundraising with committee members again making shawls and we want to do ribbon shirts as well in honor of the men who have been affected.”

“One of the things that’s so great about the pow wow is that if you touch even one person we’ve done our job,” Wallette said. “Before that evening ended this woman came up to me and said she hadn’t gone in for a mammogram for years but was going to call that Monday morning to schedule a mammogram.”