Buckley celebrates Native American Heritage Month

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Marcy Glass
  • 460th Space Wing Public Affairs
Buckley Air Force Base, Colo.--November is National American Indian Heritage month. To honor this month, volunteers from Team Buckley scheduled time at the Crested Butte and A-Basin CDCs to visit the children and to teach them about Native American Heritage, by creating rain sticks and finger painting. The children were able to get colorful and creative during the finger painting session. They were able to dip their hands into globs of paint and create a rainbow of hand prints. The paper used during the finger painting was used to decorate boxes during the Native American Heritage Food Drive.
Rain sticks which originated in Chile or Peru, were made with hollow tubes usually made from cactus that were left to dry in the sun. Pebbles or other small objects were placed inside the rain stick, and the ends are sealed shut. As you shake the rain stick back and forth it resembles the sound of rain falling, and it is in this belief that the shaking of the rain stick would bring about rain. The children rolled paper or used toilet paper rolls decorated with colored construction paper as the hollow tube for their rain sticks. Inside they placed small handfuls of beads to make the sound of falling rain. On the outside the children were able to decorate or write their names, and the classrooms began to fill with the sound of rain.