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Woman Wowed By A Pow Wow

27th July, 08

Raised a New York City girl with no indigenous coordinates, contributing to the Native American Village these last few months has been an eye-opener for me.

Yesterday proved a first hand case in point.  I attended my first pow wow.  In my anticipation of the event, the 30th Annual Thunderbird American Indian Mid-Summer Pow Wow, held in Floral Park, Queens, I fought to erase the prickling resurfacing of those old TV images of pow wows as Indian war counsels, with subservient “squaws,” and “braves” head to toe in buckskin sitting “Indian” style around late-night campfire embers.  The fact that the day was splendidly bright and toasty warm helped to set a vastly different scene, as did the packed parking lot I passed after alighting from the #46 bus.

I had struck up a conversation with another attendee en route as we passed through neighborhoods of well-scrubbed lawns and solid brick single family homes, small parks and cemeteries.  (Surely there was more greenery here than almost anywhere else in the City.

Cynthia was to be more of a participant than I.  She’d been gifted a Native shawl—indispensible for women dancers, along with a feathered fan, she told me—by a woman she’d met at a previous pow wow, and would be showing her stuff in an open dance in the evening.  An African-American, Cynthia discovered she has some Native blood and avidly attends pow wows throughout the East.  She integrates Native awareness and culture into her Pre-K curriculum at the Riverside Church School where she teaches. 

As we entered the grounds, she remarked on how many faces she recognized, while I was awash in the newness of it all.  There were people from all over—Anglo families on day outings, many Latinos, African-Americans with a disproportion of “dreads,” a few European tourists--bless them for their determination to make the long journey--Indians, of course, of every hue and phenotype, including a number with features that could have stepped out of an Edward S. Curtis photograph. 

A large grass arena enclosed by bales of hay that served as bleachers delineated the center of activity,  The main attraction of the 3-day pow wow was an ongoing dance competition amongst, it was said, 40 tribes from throughout the hemisphere. The promo was  born out as a traveling troupe of Aztecs quickly appeared.  The five dancers, including two women and a young boy, all magnificently plumed, were very strong, emanating a definitive energy of defiance and pride. 

At the head of the circle sat Gerald Mirra, the pow wow’s perennial host.  In a languid voice—it was hot out, and no one was in a hurry to do anything except enjoy—he called the competitors to the field by their assigned numbers and described the origin of the dances the contestants were competing in as well as some of their symbology.  I just LOVED the Fancy Prairie chicken dance, performed skillfully and humorously by some of the male competitors as they cocked and bobbed their heads, pawed the ground and ruffled their “tails” to show off, noted Gerald, for the women. 

Beside Gerald was a circle of chanting drummers, about 10 men, gaily tattooed, many of them, their ears gleaming in bling, playing a mighty kettle-like drum as large as a communal dining table. Some, I noticed were doubling as dance contestants.  Naturally I was drawn to the musicians, to be close to them.  As unfamiliar as I’ve been with Indian country happenings, like pow wows, so too, has Native music been on the far reaches of my musical purview.  After some minutes standing behind the circle, fixing on their rubber-tipped mallets hollowing out a unison, repetitive and  basic 2/4 beat, I felt taken over by its trancelike power. 

Encircling the arena were booths of vendors and Native organizations.  The vendors’ ware, indigenous jewelry, clothing and artifacts from North and Central America, was pricey yet not inordinately so, and much of it was tasteful and tempting. 

Food vendors were in welcomed evidence, the majority of them offering Indian country fare, although pizza also reared its inevitable head.  I ventured over to one of the booths offering frybread, skewered venison (or was it rabbit? Or pork?), Lakota tacos, and lemonade.  Near by, also tempting, was a booth serving just oodles and oodles of roasted corn.  I tried my first frybread, eschewing one with the works (the Lakota taco, I’m told)--red beans, shredded cheese and lettuce, tomato and hot sauce--for a simple dusting of powdered sugar.  It was an ultimate moment, one of baptism, proven by the showering of sugar fallen onto my clothes, and of discovering an ultimate comfort food in the middle of an ultimately comforting afternoon. 

I was able to chat up some of the folks at the American Indian Community House, a major area organization that provides health services, events, education and training.  So stay tuned for more from them.  And more reports of events such this pow wow from me.  I think I’ve caught Cynthia’s bug.