A Powwow Summer Across North America

By Dr. Lita Mathews

A Powwow Summer Across North America is a cultural artifact in it's own right which provides a behind the scene explanation and understanding of this popular American Indian tradition in North America. Dr. Lita Mathews opens up a portal for the reader to become familiar with the lifestyle of America's first people.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Dec 18, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483516073

Book preview

Chapter One -

Personal Background

I am a Native American of Northern New Mexico and have participated for the past sixteen years as a dancer in Native American powwows across North America and Canada. I have traveled with my family to remote reservations located on or near isolated areas such as Hays, Montana, and Peguis, buried deep in Manitoba, Canada. For the past 16 years, I have cultivated a second role, that of a student in the College of Education at the University of New Mexico. Together with my husband, Derek, and our daughter, Melonie, I have nurtured the Gathering of Nations Pow Wow, which has taken place at the University of New Mexico Arena every spring since the mid 1980s.

Life as a dancer is very different from my rural upbringing, where the native culture follows pueblo tradition. As a teenager, I left my hometown and moved to Albuquerque, married, and raised two sons. The marriage ended after seventeen years. For the few short years after my divorce, I worked odd jobs in order to support my family. It was then that I realized an education would eventually lead to a better life, so I enrolled at the University of Albuquerque to work towards a degree. I became a work-study student and was assigned to work for the Dean of Students, Derek Mathews. It was through the Dean that I was introduced to the powwow culture. My initial involvement was not as a participant nor a spectator but rather to assist with the planning of the University of Albuquerque’s 1983 Spring Powwow.

It was perhaps at that time that the distance from knowing about my heritage became most intriguing and made me question my identity. In her book, It Takes a Village, Hillary Clinton (1996) also questions identity: our true selves—who we are, who we are not, who we wish we could be (p. 9). Frequently, throughout my life, from childhood to early adulthood, I had not known how to approach my roots. Also, I received no family support, so the quest had remained dormant. In retrospect, I found my identity by learning about my heritage and cultural traditions through participation in the powwow. Through dancing and competing in powwows, I have achieved a personal growth measured by my awakening to the richness and breadth of Native American wisdom. It was Derek who, sixteen years ago, introduced me to powwows and encouraged me to dance the Women’s Northern Traditional Buckskin style for competition; he has been immersed in powwow life for over thirty years. Our journeys across North America are experiences that I have tried to share with friends and family for years.

My own perspective of powwow events differs from the perspectives of outsiders and academically trained observers. As a native woman who has participated as a powwow dancer and powwow administrator for nearly two decades, I have interacted with a great variety of other powwow participants whose involvement dates back, in some cases, to the early 1900s and whose tribal and intertribal affiliations reach out across North America and into Canada. I have, therefore, been exposed to much powwow legend and lore as it is preserved in Indian oral tradition. These attributes have shaped my role as ethnographer and compliment my personal identity as a native powwow performer.

In my role as powwow participant, I have developed a working familiarity with the history, social structure, and culture of the powwow. Its customs and traditions have developed primarily out of the Plains tribes of North America and have become a way for Native American people to keep some aspects of Indian culture alive. Today, it is evident that there is a growing population of Indian people seeking to revitalize their cultural identity through intensive powwow participation. Currently, the powwow performance trail stretches from Florida to New York City, through the mid-west, the Dakotas, Texas and the Southwest, and reaches into the coastal regions of California and northern Canada. Over the past sixteen years my family and I have traveled between 35,000 to 40,000 miles annually to participate at powwows. In 1993, the year I kept the journal of my activities and impressions, we traveled 20,000 miles in ten weeks (see Appendix B).

Significance of This Study

My research investigates a coherent representation of powwow culture that contributes to an awareness of the expressive intent of powwow performances. These events and the traditions that shape their narrative development establish for Indians an identity the world at large can recognize. At the same time, powwows strengthen cultural pride and self-esteem among Indians. Academically oriented methods of research such as mine help to articulate the continuities of tradition as well as to draw attention to innovative practices that maintain cultural autonomy in the face of social and political changes on transnational levels.

As a naturalistic ethnographer of powwow culture, I am able to express my insider’s perspective as well as to mediate the voices of the people who are rooted in the culture of powwows— the grassroots—who affect and are affected by each powwow performance. My research has generated volumes of written records, taped interviews, and photographs. Many powwow participants have contributed to this research and in so doing have increased their own awareness of their contributions to native culture.

To the best of my knowledge, I am the only Native American woman who has conducted participant-observer research into powwow culture as a traveler of the powwow circuit as well as an organizer of a major powwow event. Today, powwows are publicized globally through Internet services, and an increasingly multicultural, consumer-based audience is expressing interest. I feel research efforts such as mine help to protect the autonomy of the powwow culture while at the same time encourage the development of an educated non-Indian audience.

Defining the Powwow

Powwows have been part of the Plains Indian history for over 100 years. Limited to this discovery, the term powwow dates back to the nineteenth century. A powwow is said to have had several purposes. According to one source, the chiefs of the Pawnee and Ponca Tribes gathered together for peace talks, which usually were followed by dancing. Another explanation traces the word powwow to the Algonquin language, which was spoken among tribes formerly found along the East Coast of North America, and means A North American Indian conjurer or medicine man (Grove, 1986). A powwow meant healing by incantation and to ensure success in battle or the hunt. My working definition of the term powwow is a social gathering of people who are celebrating various aspects of Indian culture, be they religious, social, or, in many cases, both.

From an historical perspective, powwows are Native American celebrations that bring together Indian people for the purpose of renewing tribal traditions, customs, and beliefs. A powwow demonstrates Indian identity. Powwows have been held to celebrate victories in battle, settlements of new camps, family reunions, intertribal marriages, and many other events of significance to communities at large.

Specific powwow events are highly individualized. They may be determined by geographical site, tribal or intertribal sponsorship and participation, the degree of emphasis placed upon traditional ceremonial dances, or upon the more contemporary dance contests. In every instance, however, song and dance carry educational as well as entertainment value, informing Native American culture through modeling and narrative. The Native American culture enriches and is enriched by the powwow performance.

Powwows have notably increased in popularity since World War II, attracting non-Indian audiences from urbanized locations to powwow events. They offer special appeal to grassroots activists who are concerned with ecological and social justice issues as well as the new-age spirituality practitioners interested in Native American religious rites. At present, powwows provide a multicultural experience for people of many different ethnic backgrounds who seek to establish participatory identity with Native American cultural practices. Some Native American artists, writers, and scholars justifiably claim that today there is a real renaissance of Native American culture, and it now plays an increasing part in the curricula of American colleges and universities.

The movement, often referred to as pan-Indianism, with its merging of specific tribal cultures into a generalized Indian cultural identity, finds particularly strong expression in powwow events. All Native American tribes and bands throughout North America are represented at powwows, whether as dancers, singers, arts and craft vendors, or spectators. However, many powwows today are held in urban areas across the United States and Canada and attract the public at large; they draw people from all walks of life who seek lively entertainment and a friendly atmosphere.

Researcher’s Stance

I entered graduate studies in the College of Education at the University of New Mexico with the clear intention of using the knowledge and skills gained to develop a more systematically structured and historically informed approach to my participation in as well as broaden my understanding of the powwow culture. An insider myself, I needed to develop that double vision which would allow me to reposition myself on the outside and seek to become familiar with the complex nature and the range of the expressive intent of powwows as performance events. Through my course work in sociology of education, I considered the basic questions for my study, questions typically asked by non-Indians: What is a powwow? Who attends these events? However, I wished to discover how the participants perceive the powwow. Has it become a significant social or cultural event in their lives? Is the Native American culture being exchanged? These became the basic questions that fulfilled the over-all perspective I needed.

I turned to ethnographic inquiry in order to identify the characteristics and demographics of those who follow the powwow trail and to evaluate the breadth of the culture as a fulcrum of Native American traditions and values. The skills I acquired through fieldwork observation include the cognitive flexibility I developed through practices of analytical reflection, which strengthened my capability and identity as an academic researcher. My discovery of the methodological complexity of ethnographic narrative validated my sense of journal keeping as central to my research approach.

Limitations of Study

As the reader moves through this body of material, it is my intention to provide a unique view of the lifestyle of powwow participants as it is lived. The study, however, does not reveal the religious views of the participants and thus leaves open the opportunity for vast research into the areas of the religion or sacred traditions or adaptation by all tribes.

Outline of Dissertation

In the following chapter I provide a literature review that focuses on historical contexts and some theoretical constructs. I discuss the powwow as it has been written about historically by academically trained observers (i.e., anthropologists). Five points of interest have emerged. The first point concerns the popularized image of the American Indian as projected in the nineteenth century, particularly the Wild West Shows. The second point focuses on the Ghost Dance Rebellion and is of particular importance because of an interview I conducted with an elderly woman who recalled the ceremonial dances that were forbidden to her as an Indian child. The third point concerns the pan-Indian and hobbyist movement (non-Indians who participate in Native American cultural activities) as they relate to intertribal alliances in response to governmental and racist oppression. The fourth point looks at late twentieth century attitudes. The final point focuses on cultural revitalization.

In Chapter Three I consider the methodology of the study from my naturalistic approach and develop an ethnographic narrative. The main body of this dissertation (Chapter Four) comprises the findings. These consist of my research journal: the sometimes daily notations made during my powwow summer across North America. Here, the reader will find an inside view of powwow life through my vision and voice. In addition I have merged the voices and pictorial displays of the people, my peers, through quotations from interviews and photographs taken by powwow attendees themselves.

In Chapter Five, my analysis developed from the multiple experiences drawn from the findings; i.e., self analysis, transmission and revitalization of culture, change as a factor on travel and competition, and the changing role of competition and behavior at powwows.

Chapter two -

Literature Review:

Historical Context and Theoretical Construct

Introduction

As an insider to Native American powwow culture, my ethnographic investigation of this culture has been driven by my desire to heighten my conscious understanding of the system of values that governs the society of which I am a part. From an historical perspective, powwows are Native American celebrations that bring together Indian people for the purpose of renewing tribal traditions, customs, and beliefs. Powwows have been held to celebrate victories in battle, family reunions, intertribal marriages, and many other events of