Haliwa-Saponi 51st Annual Pow-Wow “Blooming of the Dogwood” cover

The Haliwa-Saponi Indian Tribe, whose land is situated within the boundaries of North Carolina, offered a pictorial postmark for their 51st Annual Pow-Wow to which everyone in the area is invited. The event serves as a celebration of their traditional culture AND as a celebration of the flowering dogwood trees beginning to blossom.

That's a lot to cover in one … cover. As it were. But I tried!

The text — "Merecouremechen Kihoe" — is the formal way of saying "You are welcome to be here" in the southeast dialect of the Saponi language, and I probably re-checked a dozen times to make sure that this is exactly how it is written.

The flag stamp (Scott #3403i) is the "Indian Peace Flag": the version of the U.S. flag historically given as a gift by the U.S. government when attempting to begin peaceful negotiations with a native nation — and conveniently, the state tree of North Carolina is the flowering dogwood, and was pictured on their statehood stamp (Scott #2347).

Official tribal website: http://haliwa-saponi.com

Haliwa-Saponi on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haliwa-Saponi