So, I've pretty much been dreading this year's 4th of July since I found out I was going to be gone for it. I was bummed that all of my friends would have fun plans and I would be stuck out here doing nothing. Seriously, what do you do on a reservation to celebrate the 4th?!
I quickly found out what you do-- go to a pow wow!!
We really had no idea what all that involved, but everyone was talking about it, so we knew we had to go. We kept getting warned about being out after dark, driving on the back roads, etc because of all of the drinking and driving accidents that happen, so we were a little nervous about going to the pow wow by ourselves. Luckily for us, we had a new housemate move in a few days before the pow wow,so he went along with us. We were sporting our red, white, and blue attire and were fully prepared to stick out like sore thumbs. We headed to the casino, which is where the pow wow was held. It's around a 30 minute drive since we didn't take the back roads, but traffic wasn't as bad as I thought it would be and we made pretty good time. We walked up towards the festivities and hesitantly took a seat. We were definitely in the minority to say the least. We climbed to the top of the stands and tried to snag a shaded seat..... And now we wait.
We went early so we could see the "Grand Entry". We had no idea what that even was, but we figured it was important enough to see. After a few minutes, they started calling out different names of groups who would one by one sing and all play one big drum.
The groups were sitting all around the circle, so once they went around once, they started the Grand Entry. They introduced each group as they came in. It was actually a pretty long entrance, and not as exciting as I thought. I videoed the whole thing- and of course, NONE of my videos will upload correctly! Hopefully I can get it figured out (rookie blogger!)
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| tiny tots dancer |
After the Grand Entry, they introduced a few individuals (a few servicemen and some "pageant" queens and princesses) and then started the dances.
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| Teen "grass" dancer |
They have different categories of dancing and different age groups. They started with the "tiny tots" and worked their way up. The boys and girls dance separately and have totally different styles of dance. I'm pretty certain that they have different names for the way they dance, which I believe depends on the beat of the song, but I didn't catch any of them. I do know some of the categories are the fancy dance, jingle dance, traditional, and one of them was called grass dance or something like that? The only difference between all of those (that I could tell) was what they wore. The dancers get judged on different things, none of which I really know. I'm assuming the costume is a part of it, and I also know that they get judged on if they stop on the last beat or not. They have to stop exactly with the last beat, or they get counted off. The only reason I know that is from another housemate who happens to be Native. He was telling me some inside info about the dancing - The men who play the drums and sing for the dancers apparently try to fake out the dancers with stopping/starting their songs.
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| REAL Eagle head on the stick |
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| Traditional dancer (I think) |
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| Teen Fancy dancer |
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| Traditional dancer |
The judging must be intense, because it seemed like EVERY dance had a tie, or a 3-way tie. They had dance-offs to break they tie, which made each dance take twice as long. We were hoping to see the adults dance, thinking they would be more interesting, but after 4 hours of watching the kids and teens, we decided we had had enough.
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| Fancy Dancers |
They have a meal at the pow wow for everyone every day, and they seemed to be breaking for that. We didn't know if that was open to us, but we also didn't want to eat it, so it was a pretty good time to leave. We stayed for the prayer, which was spoken in Lakota, and then snuck out the back. Katelyn managed to purchase a dream catcher before we left!
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| More Fancy Dancers |
The rest of our 4th of July was pretty eventful compared to every other night at Motel 6! We stopped at the store on the way home and picked up some food - turkey burgers, potatoes and veggies, and corn/black bean salsa fixings- and we had a feast with the roommates!
We really had no idea what all that involved, but everyone was talking about it, so we knew we had to go. We kept getting warned about being out after dark, driving on the back roads, etc because of all of the drinking and driving accidents that happen, so we were a little nervous about going to the pow wow by ourselves. Luckily for us, we had a new housemate move in a few days before the pow wow,so he went along with us. We were sporting our red, white, and blue attire and were fully prepared to stick out like sore thumbs. We headed to the casino, which is where the pow wow was held. It's around a 30 minute drive since we didn't take the back roads, but traffic wasn't as bad as I thought it would be and we made pretty good time. We walked up towards the festivities and hesitantly took a seat. We were definitely in the minority to say the least. We climbed to the top of the stands and tried to snag a shaded seat..... And now we wait.
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