Native American leader
Dies
at Beach of illness
November 28, 1999
BY Vandana Sinha
Virginian Pilot Staff Writer
VIRGINIA BEACH -- Donald "Bright Path" Kuhns spent his life battling ignorance and stereotypes, fighting to save his Native American heritage before it drowned in the cultural mainstream, never giving up what he had set his mind to do.
But the 44-year-old Beach resident succumbed Sunday night to a
sudden illness that left his people one leader - and the public one teacher - short, two days before the month that celebrates Native American heritage
comes to a close.
A service was held at 10 a.m. Wednesday at Rosewood Kellum Funeral Home on Witchduck Road, before proceeding to the Mattaponi
Indian Reservation in West Point.
Friends and wellwishers say Kuhns, who had lived on the reservation until the age of 8, had become his tribe's messenger to Hampton Roads.His decade-old arts and crafts store was a center of information for the thousands of American Indians settling or passing through.
Kuhns, grandson of the chief of the Mattaponi Indian Tribe, had dedicated his life to his grandfather"s vision -- enlightening others about who they are, beyond the motion picture stereotypes of teepees and turkey dinners.
"He was very devoted to the Indian culture," said Barry "Big Buck" Bass, chief of the Nansemond Tribe and a close friend.
At more than 6 feet tall, strapping and heavy-set with black hair hanging past his shoulders, Kuhns had looked the warrior. But his heart had been anything but hostile, as he quietly, but regularly, had taken the forsaken into his house, bought meals for the poor and made sure children left his
shop with free candy, beads or a dream catcher, friends say.
"I might have seen him one time, in all the years I've known him, that he wasn't smiling," said Alvin W. "Big Mountain" Anderson, a Cherokee Indian and friend.
"He was just a little boy in a big man's body".
After graduating from Bayside High School, attending Chowan College for almost two years and joining the Army for a short stint as a medic in Germany, Kuhns returned to the Beach to realize his grandfather's vision.
He made presentations, in full regalia, to elementary school classes and Boy Scout troops. He held arts and crafts classes each Thursday evening. He had testified before the Newport News City Council, asking members to stop plans to build a reservoir that he felt would scar the sacred Mattaponi River. He had even begun an annual tradition to hold a Mount Trashmore powwow commemorating Indian veterans.
And he had opened American Heritage, one of the first shops of Native American arts, crafts, books, cards, jewelry, clothing and accessories in Virginia Beach - a place on Independence Boulevard he worked to build, with only $750 in his bank account, in 1990.
The store turned into much more than his livelihood, though. It was the birthing ·place of the Tidewater Native American Indian Support Group, the only regional forum where local Indians can share issues of identity and culture.
Kuhns helped attract as many as 70 Indians to the first meeting and, in the past year and a half, up to 225 members from 38 national tribes.
He is survived by his parents, who say they will continue to run the shop and make presentations at elementary schools. He also is survived by his wife, Cynthia, and two sons, Bradley "Swift Eagle," 16, and Daniel "Little Bear," 12.
But nothing, his parents agreed, will replace Kuhns' passion.
"It was his love for his people, and he wanted to share it with the world," said his uncle, Lin "Little Bear" Custalow, historian for the Mattaponi Tribe. "I think he brought awareness of the First Americans more in its native tone in Virginia Beach.
"I think he'll be remembered for a long time in those areas."
You can reach Vandana Sinha at 222-5139 or at vsinha@pilotonline.com
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