Kevin Harris II
Nottawseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi
Finding himself spiritually created an ally, and mentor, for Indigenous and biracial members of his community.
Growing up, Kevin Harris II of Battle Creek, Michigan, always knew he was Native American, but never fully grasped what it meant.
Kevin, 34, is a member of the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi, and although he grew up living with some knowledge of traditional Native culture, it wasn’t until adulthood he fully understood what it meant to be Native and create that “spiritual connection.”
“It took me until I was 28 to actually put that cultural way of life into my life and walk it,” said Kevin. “It’s called walking the red road.”
Traditionally, when someone is walking the red road, they are on a journey of positive life changes, often living a sober lifestyle and embracing cultural traditions, values, and beliefs.
Kevin himself has relied on alcohol, but so did the generations of his family before him. He lost family members, including his paternal grandmother to cirrhosis.
“My dad lost his mom at 13 to alcoholism,” he said. “It creates a different spirit. It takes away their spirituality.”
Generations worth of trauma and forced assimilation is what Kevin credits much of the substance abuse in his family to.
Kevin, 34, is a member of the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi
“A lot of my family was colonized in boarding schools, they were told not to be Indian anymore, never speak that language,” he said.
In 1883, the Religious Crimes Code was created to ban all traditional Native dancing and ceremonies in the United States. The code was not repealed until 1978 when the American Indian Religious Freedom act was signed into law.
While Kevin wasn’t born until the late 80s, his family was stripped of much of their culture as a result of this and unable to pass it on as thoroughly to younger generations.
“I wasn’t born into those cultural teachings, or doing all of [the] things I do now,” he said. “I just knew I was Native.”
As a child he grew his hair long like his uncles and father at his grandmother’s insistence, as a way of connecting to his heritage.
“She said, ‘You’re Potawatomi, and I feel like there’d be a better future for you if you follow these ways,” he recalls. “She played a big role in showing me the way and where our tribe was.”
Still, he often struggled with his identity as a biracial person growing up. Kevin is part Potawatomi from his father, and African American from his mother.
“It’s been an identity crisis, you know, trying to be what you really feel,” he said.
Kevin says the identity crisis created a “mad kid” as a person of color in society without a community of people of his culture.
He recalls not wanting to spend time with non-native people as they would often call him names, and not being accepted by some of his Native family because he wasn’t “full-blooded.”
“They would say to me, ‘why are you here? You’re Black,’.”
Kevin blames colonization for this racist mindset he was often at the receiving end of, but has never given into it himself.
“You have the best of both worlds, your spirituality, all your knowledge and everything that comes with that,” he says about being biracial. “You have all these different traits of these beautiful people in you.”
However, Kevin is far from alone when it comes to being Native and biracial, or multiracial. According to the 2020 census, the total number of people who identified as American Indian and Alaska Native was 9.7 million, with 5.9 million of those identifying as multiracial.
“There’s a prophecy about that, it’s called the rainbow nation,” Kevin says. “At the end of the day our people will be different colors.” The prophecy states that multiracial people will eventually come together to heal the earth:
‘Native prophecies say that mixed-blood and white people who grew their hair long and wore beads would come to the Native healers and ask for guidance… The prophecies say that they would return as the Rainbow people in bodies of different colours: red, white, yellow and black. The old ones said that they would return and unite to help restore balance to the Earth.
‘The story of these Rainbow Warriors is told by many peoples in many different ways. We feel that we are in that time now when the Rainbow Warriors are coming about. (…) So it is a time where we have to acknowledge that we are all human beings upon the same planet and that’s what the Rainbow Warriors is all about.’
―Sun Bear, Ojibwe teacher and author
https://theearthstoriescollection.org/en/the-legend-of-the-rainbow-warriors/
Kevin holds a fan made of eagle feathers
Still, the scrutiny wore down Kevin’s confidence, which he says he didn’t start to regain until he was 21 years old and started drinking alcohol.
“I chose alcohol and things like that to be more confident in who I am, but I know that was just a band-aid,” he says.
It took his father getting sober, and attending a culturally centered rehab program, for Kevin to decide he was going to start his journey walking the red road.
“The one thing that was missing in our people was not knowing what Potawatomi people were,” says Kevin. “An elder showed him his path, and then he was able to show me mine.”
Developing a deeper understanding and connection with the traditional Potawatomi way of life helped Kevin during his recovery process. Engaging in a lifestyle cohesive with walking the red road meant not consuming any substance that Creator did not intend for its people, alcohol included.
There was one specific concept from the Potawatomi that Kevin mentioned he follows today, and while on his road to recovery.
“There’s a word, mno-bmadzewen, that’s when you’re living healthy: spiritually, physically and mentally.”
The closest translation to this way of life in the English language is “living the good life”.
Today, Kevin works as a culture specialist for the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of the Potawatomi in Athens, Michigan revitalizing the culture and language.
“With me growing up and changing my life, that red road life, the Creator blessed me with the opportunity to step up and share my journey with the community,” says Kevin.
As a cultural specialist Kevin attends various ceremonies to open up with a prayer, revitalizes regalia and teaches cultural sensitivity in workplaces, among other duties.
“I’ll be at a funeral or repatriation getting remains, or I could be at a domestic violence advocate saying a prayer that morning,” he says. “Just anywhere you can squeeze something in there, that way they can learn something. It helps our people.”
Through his work, Kevin hopes to inspire the younger generations of Native people to live that healthy lifestyle and help connect them to their traditional cultural ways.
“One day, there’s going to be a kid that said ‘He did it, Why can’t we do it?’,”.
A “Decolonize your mind” shirt designed by Kevin
Part of his work also includes traveling to schools and presenting teachings and the culture to students. Kevin says he has seen a sort of resurgence of Native pride among the younger generations he speaks with.
“Nowadays, it’s cool to be Native,” he says. Kevin fears though, that while younger Native people have more pride in their culture, they aren’t always putting in the work to maintain the traditions. That work he says, will “open the door to the eighth and final fire.”
The 8th fire prophecy in Anishinaabe culture is the lighting of “an eternal fire of peace, love, brotherhood and sisterhood.”
“People are starting to open up and be who they want to be, and you can’t control that. You can’t control love and freedom of speech and how they feel,” says Kevin.
He says he feels that this younger generation has a responsibility to carry on the work he and others have been doing to preserve it by living a healthy lifestyle and working with the elders in their communities.
“Put in the work. Oshkaabewis are the helpers, always be the helper to what’s going on in your culture,” says Kevin.
Kevin plans to continue his work with the tribe as long as there is work to be done in revitalizing and protecting the culture so sacred to him and his community, which there will be for considering how long it was repressed.
The Potowatomi were originally known as the Bode’wadmi people, which translates to “the people who maintain a fire”. Kevin says it is an honor to be a firekeeper and to revitalize this work.
“Our tribe didn’t get recognized until 1995, that’s how long we’ve been repressed. So, we have a rule, that we need to bring our people back up, because we’ve been down for so long,” he says. We've been doing this for a long time. So, I can say that it will still be there. It might not be how Kevin does it. But we don't stray away.”
“How do you live a traditional life in the modern world? It's about you, and finding yourself. And that's how a lot of folks find that culture. They find who they are, the true meaning in their heart, you know, and that's the bottom line.”
