Henderson Indigenous Heritage Celebration highlights Native cultures

Ingrid Ivarsson walked the Water Street Plaza wearing an intricate black regalia.

Around her ankles, the rattling of ayoyotes — hard shells with beads inside — counted her every step. From her neck hung a bat-shaped pendant made with black and dark purple beads. And on her head was a copilli, a crown adorned with white, tan and royal purple feathers splayed like a peacock’s tail.

Ivarsson’s outfit was one of many Native American traditions displayed during Henderson’s annual Indigenous American Heritage Celebration on Sunday. She said the gathering was an opportunity to have a “multicultural, intercultural trade” among different Native populations.

“We’ve been here for 22,000 years. So after colonization, a lot of people lost their traditional ways,” Ivarsson, of a mixed Indigenous back