American Indians
revisit roots at UNL
POWWOW from page 1
out each category of dance.
A powwow was originally an
American Indian ceremony to cure
disease or assure success in a war.
It was full of feasting and dancing.
Lawrence Cook, Grant’s
grandfather and an elder, said the
powwow was a way of celebrating
the creations of the earth. The
designs on the costumes, he said,
represented those creations.
Powwows are held almost
every weekend year-round some
where in the country, Grant said.
These powwows still celebrate
creation, but also focus on six cat
egories of competitive dance.
Over two days, the powwow
brought nearly 500 dancers and
spectators to campus.
“There’s no other event that
brings this many Indian people to
this university,” said Helen Long
Soldier, education specialist in the
Multicultural Affairs office and
president of Nebraska Indian
Education Association.
Long Soldier hoped the event
would help in the recruitment of
American Indian students to the
university.
The powwow also gave non
American Indians an opportunity
to learn about the culture, Grant
said.
Oscar Baeza has attended the
powwow since his freshman year
and said the atmosphere is “just
amazing.”
“The feeling is overwhelming
- it’s indescribable,” Baeza, a
junior psychology major, said.
Jim Johnston, an Omaha resi
dent who ran a booth at the event,
has traveled to powwows across
the country, selling beads and
other materials for costumes.
“I get to see a part of a culture
most people don’t even see exist,”
he said.
And, Johnston said, this part of
the culture will continue to be
important.
“The longer they have the pow
wow, the more they preserve their
culture.”
HIV infection rampant
in Africa, expert says
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) —
More than 20 million people in sub
Saharan Africa carry the virus thal
causes AIDS, and most of them
don’t even know it, an expert told an
international conference Sunday.
“The situation in this region is
unprecedented,” said Dr. Peter Piot,
executive director of the U.N
Program on HIV/AIDS.
Piot was addressing the opening
session of the 10th International
Conference on AIDS and Sexually
Transmitted Diseases in Africa, a
five-day gathering bringing togeth
er hundreds of researchers who will
discuss methods for stemming the
disease’s spread on the continent.
French President Jacques Chirac
also was to address the gathering.
A UNAIDS report released two
weeks ago estimated 30.6 million
live with HIV or AIDS globally,
two-thirds of them in sub-Saharan
Africa. One in every 13 men and
women between the ages of 15 and
49 are carriers of HIV, the virus that
causes AIDS, Piot said.
But he said that UNAIDS esti
mates that nine out of 10 people
don’t know they are infected and
therefore never seek medical assis
tance or arrange care for themselves
and their children when they
become ill.
The developing world’s lack of
access to the latest, and most expen
I
6(
Only a very small
proportion of people
in the developing
world have access
to (the latest)
treatments!’
Peter Piot
UNAIDS executive director
sive, treatments plays a major role
in the spread of the disease in
Africa, according to Piot. He noted
that many industrialized countries
were seeing a drop in AIDS deaths
as a result of new therapy whose
price is far beyond the reach of most
Africans.
“Only a very small proportion of
people in the developing world have
access to these treatments,” Piot
said.
The solution, Piot said, is an
“unprecedented global effort” to
make drugs more accessible in
developing countries, and to
improve health services so that
more people can be tested and
respond early to the disease.
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tHMoh rrom page 1
manager, said customers like the all
university-made, hand-wrought
nature of the boxes, which become
more popular each year.
The Dairy Store, now celebrating
its 80th anniversary, started making
the gifts between 30 and 40 years ago,
she said.
But the operation wasn’t as large
back then.
In the last decade, the store began
aggressively marketing the gift boxes
by sending a mail-order form to every
person who has ordered a cheese box
during past holiday seasons, Vokoun
said. The list started at 2,000 names,
but now reaches nearly 5,000.
The store still sells some boxes
from a refrigerator case decked with
Christmas wrap and tinsel, but the
■" ■ ■■■ - _
majority now are mail-ordered and
shipped.
Yet few corporations mass order
the gifts, she said. Instead, individual
Nebraskans interested in supporting
the state and the university- or in dis
playing their Cornhusker pride -
make up most of the mail-order cus
tomers.
Those customers often ask store
employees to include “some really
weird notes” in the gift boxes,
Vokoun said.
“They’ll say, ‘To Pookie’ or some
thing,” she said.
Other notes have read, “Here’s
another winner from Nebraska,” or,
“Eat this while you’re watching us
win.”
“Sometimes, we’ll get a chuckle
over them,” Vokoun said.
When the hand-crafted boxes are
shipped out, stuffed with their per
sonal notes and locally made goodies,
the not-for-profit Dairy Store counts
$125,000 in revenue—more than half
the amount needed to operate annual -
Laurie Keller, general dairy plant
manager, said competition to sell the
boxes has increased from other local
vendors over the years, especially
from large wholesalers like Sam’s
Club.
But the store continues to
improve both its cheese box sales and
its plans to make the box contents
more appetizing, she said. Next year,
some boxes may include tortilla chips
made on East Campus.
Then, sales could top 9,000
boxes, Keller said.
“It’s small potatoes for major
companies, but a good deal for us.”
Chr1 out
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