“We don’t want your rations. We want this dance:” Native American Dance and The Battleground for Native Identity

A photograph by Corey Soap of a Native American man at an Oklahoma Powwow (2014) – Retrieved from smithosoniamag.com. 

By Joshua Berkowitz

Joshua Berkowitz is a student in the BA-MAT teaching social studies program. His undergraduate degree focused on American history, and this paper was originally produced as a senior thesis for Professor April Masten’s “Dancing Through American History”  research colloquium. The paper was then presented at the 2022 URECA history symposium.

 

When studying the Indigenous People of the Americas it is important to acknowledge the immense diversity that this term encompasses. In the United States there are five hundred sixty-seven federally recognized tribes, and each of these possess their own unique culture.^[1] However, there are commonalities shared amongst Indigenous People. Most Native American tribes feature dance as a central aspect of their cultural identity. These dances are multifaceted in their purpose. In their traditional applications they often hold sacred ceremonial value. Other times dances are methods of organizing and expressing the social structure of the community. These practices have evolved as Native cultures adapted to the forces of colonization. In some instances, their meanings have been obscured or even lost altogether. During the nineteenth century the United States government made explicit attempts to destroy Native American identity and erase these practices. Despite this cultural assault, Native American dance has persevered. Today many of these traditional practices, and consequently Native American identity, are maintained through dance and performed in powwows for Natives and non-Natives alike to experience. As a result, these dances have taken on a new purpose; Native American dances today preserve aspects of traditional dance in addition to serving as a stronghold for Native American identity.

The study of “traditional” modes of any Native American cultural practice is difficult. Few written sources from a Native American perspective exist. Native American practices are typically passed down via oral tradition and Native Peoples did not conveniently record dance manuals for the use of future historians. However, sources exist that when properly read against the grain can be used to infer the nature and forms of traditional Native American dances. Some of these have been preserved through oral histories. In other instances, the observations of European explorers, while biased, can be used to parse out how Native American dances were conducted.

There is still the question of what constitutes “traditional.” Is this the cultural practice as it existed thousands of years ago? Is it the practice as conducted prior to European contact? Or is it simply prior to the modern era? Regarding the term “traditional,” Indigenous scholar Charlotte Heth has suggested it typically refers to “the oldest norms: languages, religions, artistic forms, everyday customs, and individual behavior.”^[2] For our purposes traditional can then be understood as the oldest instances of these dances as they can best be identified.

Further complicating the idea of traditional Native American dance is that tribal identity and cultural practices are not static. In recent years there has been a considerable push among historians to make up for the minimal, and at times racist, depiction of Native Americans in American history. Scholars now attempt to emphasize the individuality of Native tribes. However, one must avoid overcorrecting in this regard. While there did exist at least two thousand Native American cultures prior to the arrival of Columbus, these cultures and societies did not exist in isolation from one another.^[3] The various tribes of North America interacted with each other constantly. In his reframing of the existence of Native American societies prior to European contact, Neal Salisbury states “given the archeological record, North American ‘prehistory’ can hardly be characterized as a multiplicity of discrete microhistories. Fundamental to the social and economic patterns of even the earliest Paleo-Indian bands were exchanges that linked people across geographic, cultural, and linguistic boundaries.”^[4] Thus, Native societies were constantly interacting via trade. Naturally, trade included more than just the exchange of material goods; it involved the exchange of cultures, ideas, and religious practices. Given the interconnection between Native American religion and dance, the functions and forms of dance were certainly a part of this cultural exchange. We can see this cultural exchange in the fact that the Ponca adopted the “Stomp Dance,” which originated in the Eastern Woodlands.^[5] Clearly traditional practices and dances could cross tribal boundaries and thus evolve over time.

In addition to the forces of trade leading to evolving cultures, population loss from foreign diseases also contributed to significant changes in Indigenous cultures… Europeans brought with them diseases such as smallpox and influenza, and Native Americans died in the thousands due to a lack of natural immunity. As a result, Native tribal affiliation was in constant flux after European contact as neighboring tribal groups were forced to reform for survival. For Native Peoples reliant on oral traditions to maintain cultural practices, these population losses had devastating results. Older people were especially vulnerable to the waves of disease that eroded Native American populations. Consequently, the collected wisdom of generations that formed the backbone of Indigenous societies could be wiped out in days from illness. This cultural disruption was expressed by a Native man in Charleston in 1710, who told a settler “they have forgot most of their traditions since the Establishment of this Colony, they keep their Festivals and can tell but little of the reasons: their Old Men are dead.”^[6]

Traditional Native Dances

Native American dances are then the product of the history of exchange between Native Americans and their experiences in the nineteenth century. Despite all the headwinds Native Americans faced in attempting to preserve their culture, numerous dances have been passed down to later generations. By exploring the dance practices of various tribes, and the descriptions offered by anthropologists, historians, and Native Americans themselves, we can infer their traditional purposes.

Dances particular to the Haudenosaunee, who originate from the Northern parts of New York and are more typically known as the Iroquois, possess many dancing practices reflective of the traditional implementations of Native American dance. These functions can be divided into two primary categories: social dance and ceremonial dance. The term for social dancing is o-wen-tisa-ke on-wa-te re-wa-tohn-te, which literally translates to the dances for the celebration of things that happen on the earth that are not of a spiritual significance.^[7] There are approximately nineteen social dances with various length, verse, and tempo.^[8] Some of these dances are simply held for the purpose of amusement. However, they also serve the purpose of socializing children and introducing them to the community. The social dance begins with an opening address that takes into consideration the natural surroundings. This dance, like many Native dances, is accompanied by drums and rattles. Many of the various social dances involve circular forms with a shuffling step. Some of these are partner dances and many are performed according to gender roles. A 1731 series of etchings by Pere Joseph Francois Lafitau depicts one of these dances. (Figure 1) The dancers are drawn circled around the lead dancer, with many wearing some form of ceremonial headdress. In the second image the dancers carry what appear to be rattles, while in the foreground food and drink is prepared.^[9] The dance is clearly accompanying a social feast.

 

People also danced for ceremonial reasons. Groups of Iroquois adhered to what is known as the “Code of Handsome Lake” religion, named after an eighteenth-century prophet.^[10] These ceremonial observances intermix prayer, song, and dance as expressions for the Creator. Gender features in many of these ceremonial dances. The turtle rattle is reserved for men and is only used during ceremonial dance.^[11] The Haudenosaunee, though, are a matriarchal society and there are many ceremonial dances that celebrate the role of women as creators of life. One such example is the Women’s Shuffle Dance in which the dancers massage Mother Earth as an expression of oneness, comfort, and fertility.^[12] The spiritual component of these dances is what differentiates them from social dance. This distinction between the social and the spiritual is found throughout Native American Dance culture, and in both cases these dances held significant cultural value.

Form and Function of Native Dance

 

 

The use of regalia, gendered roles, and dancing forms by the Haudenosaunee are similar to those of other tribes. The form of a circular group is also a recurring theme in Native American dance. One of the earliest records of Native American dancing comes from Thomas Harriot who recorded his experiences in the New World in A Breife and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia. During his voyage, Harriot observed a ceremonial corn dance in the village of Secotan. Harriot witnessed Algonquin women dancing in a circular fashion around a large stake in the ground. The stakes featured painted faces that represented deities.^[13] Black Elk, the cousin of Lakota war leader Crazy Horse, once said of Indigenous culture, “you have noticed that everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the Power of the World always works in circles, and everything tries to be round…The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood.”^[14] Regalia and circular dance forms also appear in the paintings of George Catlin. (Figure 2) For example, his Buffalo Dance from 1861 depicts the Mandan people dancing in a circular form, holding ceremonial fans and donning buffalo-like headdress.^[15]

Dance served similar religious roles for Plains tribes such as the Ponca, a tribe of the Siouan family located in lower Missouri. Three of the most important of these dances were the Sun Dance, the Wa-wa or Pipe Dance, and the War Dance known as the Heduska.^[16] The Sun Dance occurred in midsummer and took place over the course of four days. Again, circular group dance is present. In the Sun Dance the dancers represent the four winds, acting as an expression of the deep religious connection Native Americans share with nature.

The Pipe dance reveals both the social and ceremonial aspects of Native dance. This dance acted as a means of redistributing wealth.^[17] The dancer carried a wand in his left hand and a large gourd rattle in his right. His motions imitated the flying movements of an eagle. During the dance, the “eagle” then “captures” another participant who becomes the recipient of a gift of tobacco. The recipient was then obliged to give the donor several gifts. These traditions were recorded by Ponca historian Peter Le Claire, who noted the sacred Pipe Dance had not been performed since the 1890s. While some groups have discussed reviving the Pipe Dance as a powwow feature, it is unlikely due to a fear of incurring supernatural punishment.^[18] The Ponca’s hesitancy to revive this dance shows that while not all dances have survived to the modern day the ceremonial importance has been preserved.

In some instances, dances were performed by dance societies. These were groups within tribes, typically dominated by men, that existed for the specific purpose of organizing and preserving tribal dance practices. The Heduska, or War Dance, is one example. It was originally practiced by a warrior dancing society. Many Indigenous groups have these dancing societies today, and they often revolve around various forms of War Dance. These dance societies were an essential part of the preservation of Native dance culture.

War Dances are an excellent example of Native American dance that has both evolved and been preserved. Traditionally, War Dances were performed before or after a battle and were accompanied by a feast. The dancing motions are meant to invoke heroic war deeds.^[19] A form of War Dance practiced by many tribes that captured the American imagination early on was the Scalp Dance. In 1935, a Jicarilla Apache named Alasco Tisnado recalled how a traditional Scalp Dance was done. Before the dance, participants painted their faces, and a circle of pollen was made on the ground. The scalps were then put on poles while the practitioners prayed. The scalp of the enemy chief was then thrown, and the spot where it landed marked the center of the dancing circle. Drumming then began the dance.^[20] In a 1792 report by David Craig to William Blount, Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Southern District, he describes a Scalp Dance performed after settlers were killed by Cherokees.^[21] These Scalp Dances naturally appear in American sources as they spoke to white people’s worst fears of Native Americans as savage warriors.^[22] In fairness, Native Americans did take scalps, and these dances were a ceremonial tradition celebrating their warrior culture. Modern performances of the Scalp Dance demonstrate that traditional cultural values can be maintained despite adaptations to Native American dances.

Today one can see Scalp Dances performed in a powwow, though no actual scalps are taken. Like many of the dances performed in modern powwows there are elements of traditional Native American dance, but repurposed. Regalia and symbolic accouterments still feature prominently, and many of the dances are still the same to the best of our knowledge. Yet their purpose has changed. These dances are not strictly performed for their traditional ceremonial purposes; instead, they are performed as a means of preserving and expressing Native American cultural heritage and identity. So how did this shift occur? How did the ceremonial Scalp Dance as performed by warriors in the eighteenth century transform into its modern manifestation? For that answer we must explore the experience of Native Americans in the nineteenth century and their interaction with the American reservation system.

Reservations and Residency Schools

Indigenous removal from ancestral lands dates back to the earliest interactions between Native Americans and American colonists. These removals were often legislated through treaties. In 1785, the Treaty of Hopewell placed the Cherokee people on land with boundaries defined by the United States government. After continued intrusions on Cherokee land by Americans, the Treaty of Holston was signed in 1791, which forced the Cherokee Nation to give up all land outside of the agreed upon borders. The government’s removal of Indigenous People was then rapidly accelerated in the Jacksonian era. In 1830, the Indian Removal Act was signed by American President Andrew Jackson, and the resulting Trail of Tears saw Native Americans die in the thousands. Later, in 1851 Congress passed the Indian Appropriations Act which established the reservation system. This legislation came to define the experiences of Native Americans in the late nineteenth century.

The U.S. government attempted to transform Native Americans into Americanized citizens who lived a Christian farming lifestyle. While this emphasis on “civilizing” came to a head in the latter half of the nineteenth century it has its origins in the policies of Jackson, who offered “Christian progress” as a rationale for his policies towards Native Americans.^[23] These changes were largely the result of pressure from reformers who sought a more benevolent treatment of Native Americans. Still, these reformers felt the proper life for Native Americans was one in which they abandoned their culture and lifestyle and adopted the ways of American citizens. This form of thinking led people like Captain Richard Henry Pratt, founder of the Carlisle Indian boarding school, to coin the phrase “kill the Indian and save the man.”^[24] Thus came the Dawes Allotment Act of 1887. This act was intended to reduce reservations and allot lands to individual Native Americans as private property, which they were then encouraged to use for farming while they adopted a Christian lifestyle.^[25] The attempt to destroy Native American practices and cultural identity was a central tenet of the Dawes Act. The act promised that those who abandoned their tribal ways and became “civilized” would be granted United States citizenship.^[26]

One of the primary means of civilizing Native Americans was the education of their children at boarding schools. Here Native American identity was destroyed from an early age. Teachers taught strictly in English and punished those caught speaking their native language.^[27] In a more physical manifestation of Native cultural erasure; boys’ long hair was cut, and any form of Native dress was taken away and replaced with Western style clothing.^[28]

The “civilizing” efforts of the government, boarding schools, and missionary societies were rooted in American Protestantism. American Protestants generally looked down on Indigenous religious beliefs. Additionally, Protestantism had contained several moments in which dance became a target of moral reform efforts. Thus, it was inevitable that Native American dance would become a point of contention on reservations. The Protestant opposition to dance was rooted in religious beliefs that go as far back as the Middle Ages. Existing reports from the clergy typically associated dance with lewdness and paganism.^[29] In her study of Native American dance, historian Jacqueline Shea Murphy made the connection that “praying through bodily movement and ritual practice rather than through sitting, reading, and believing threatened colonizers’ notions of how spirituality is manifested.”^[30] Therefore, Native American religion, particularly in the form of dance, was antithetical to the Christian life that was being imposed on reservations. Religion was to be practiced through Bible study and Church attendance, not dance. Christianity was paramount in the attempted transformation of Native Americans. Indian schools were Christian, Christian marriages were imposed on Native Americans by missionaries and reservation agents, and Native ritual medicine practices were rejected by missionaries who imposed Western medical practice.^[31]

Christian conversion ended many Indigenous religious practices, such as dance, which was outright banned. On reservations the Sun Dance, practiced by the Sioux and other Plains tribes, was banned.^[32] However, the U.S. government eventually took the civilization project out of the hands of Protestant missionaries. They were worried about a growing sectionalism amongst the missionaries and the rising prominence of Catholic missions.^[33] However, cooperation with Christian religious societies was still encouraged by the federal government. This process was overseen by Secretary of the Interior Henry Teller and his Indian Commissioner Hiriam Price. Teller and Price oversaw the first official federal ban on Native American dancing. In a letter to Price, Teller explicitly referred to the hindrance provided by “heathenish dances.” The letter specifically cited the Sun Dance and Scalp Dance.^[34] He cautions that these dances are not simply social gatherings, but instead are designed to stimulate the “warlike passions” of tribal members.^[35]

Teller directed Price to establish the Courts of Indian Offenses. Reservation agents were instructed to staff these courts, in part, with Natives who were deemed civilized. The courts ruled on matters concerning Native cultural practices deemed offensive. The first offense named in the 1883 instructions was a ban on dancing. The ban stated, “any Indian who shall engage in the Sun Dance, Scalp Dance, or War Dance, or any other similar feast, so called, shall be deemed guilty of an offense.” The punishment for which was to be a loss of rations for up to ten days, with subsequent offenses bringing imprisonment from ten to thirty days.^[36] Clearly reservation officials understood that Native American dances were essential parts of their culture since they considered them important enough to target with punitive action.

The government justified reservation policies in the context of economic necessity in addition to moral and religious opposition. Native Americans were to be made into productive farmers just as they were to be made into devout Christians. The shift in reasoning occurred as reservation policy transitioned into the twentieth century. In Circular 1665, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Charles Burke reminded reservation officials of the need to prevent Native Americans from engaging in practices that would distract them from tending to their crops and or inspire immoral behavior. Again, the punishments for offenses included the withholding of rations with the possibility of imprisonment.^[37] The responses of Indian Commissioners to objections by Native Americans reveal the increasingly capitalist tone of dance bans, whereas previous dance bans justified themselves on religious grounds.

Ironically, Native Americans often challenged dance bans using logical arguments rooted in American political ideals. Natives argued that the bans on dances were denials of their religious liberty.^[38] One Santee man named Edward Blacksmith lobbied his congressman D. Stephens regarding the dance bans. Stephens contacted the Assistant Commissioner of Indian Affairs Edgar Meritt and protested the banning of traditional dances at the Santee Fair. However, Assistant Commissioner Edgar Meritt was unconvinced, insisting that dances distracted Native Americans from their agricultural pursuits.^[39]

Given the unyielding stance of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, it is impressive that Native American dance survived. Dance survived because of Indigenous People’s resistance. As a result, Native Dance became a battleground on which the right to Native identity was fought. The persistence of dance came as a surprise to reservation officials, many of whom felt the practices would die out as Native Americans invested themselves in agriculture. Rosebud Commissioner James C. Wright was shocked at the survival of the Sun Dance which was originally continued by elders but was then taken up by younger members of the community. Still, Rosebud vowed to make continual efforts to eliminate the “demoralizing custom.”^[40] Ultimately, the government underestimated how important these cultural practices were to Native Americans who refused to see their identity die out. A man who danced in the Kiowa O-ho-mah Lodge society was said by his great-granddaughter to have stated “if you want me to give up my Ohomo ways you’ll have to kill me. Death is the only thing that will keep me from Ohomo.”^[41] A similarly poignant moment was recalled by a Kiowa man who saw his grandfather have a confrontation with a reservation official over his desire to dance. The reservation official promised rations if the tribe would stop its dancing to which the man’s grandfather responded, “We don’t want your rations. We want this dance.”^[42]

The Ghost Dance

The Ghost Dance is one of the most well documented examples of Native dance as rebellion. The dance began with a man named Wovoka of the Paiute people. Wovoka was determined to become a shaman like his father before him.^[43] In 1889, Wovoka began preaching to his followers about the coming end of the world. However, Wovoka promised that Natives need not be afraid, as this coming end time would eliminate white men in a great flood. According to his prophecy, the world would then be reborn with an ample supply of elk and deer and even the reemergence of the buffalo.^[44] Wovoka told his followers that for this vision to come true they must continue their practice of the Ghost Dance.

Wovoka’s religion and the practice of the Ghost Dance spread throughout the West and found a strong following among the Sioux people. The Sioux Ghost Dance first began with a twenty-four hour fast. Then, on the day of the dance, men and women entered separate sweat lodges for purification. Photographs from 1892 by James Mooney capture the building of the sweat lodge structures crafted from a framework of willow branches.^[45] After the sweating, the dancers were painted by medicine men. They were typically painted with symbols, such as crescents and sun circles.^[46] In an act reminiscent of the dances we discussed prior, a tall sacrifice pole was erected near the sweat lodge on which participants would tie offerings such as tobacco.^[47]

 

A common rule was that no white-styled clothing was to be worn during the Ghost Dance. This act was symbolic: by participating in this dance Natives were quite literally shedding their imposed American identities and redonning the identity of a Native American. Many pieces of Ghost Dance clothing have survived to this day. (Figure 3) One such piece features stars amongst a red and blue background with three eagles blazoned on the chest.^[48] The paint and dress used in these dances enforce the religious connection to the natural world. Once preparations were complete, the dance was performed with joined hands and a slow shuffling step accompanied by shrill singing.^[49]

The Ghost Dance was ultimately a revival of Native American religious practice. Historian Raymond DeMallie has suggested these practices borrow heavily from pre-existing ritual forms like the Sun Dance.^[50] A great deal of prior scholarship on the Ghost Dance discusses it in pejorative terms, referring to the movement as a nativistic cult. In his analysis of the Ghost Dance movement, Joel W. Martin makes the case that the Ghost Dance is instead better understood as a redemptive movement.^[51] Given the actions of the United States government on reservations, one can easily see how this practice must have held wide appeal. Wovoka promised a world in which Natives would be freed from the persecution of white men, and these promises came in familiar religious forms. For these reasons, scholars such as B.C. Mohrbacher have described the Ghost Dance as a “utopian movement.”^[52] Whatever term is used, the Ghost Dance was a widespread movement in clear opposition to dance bans that allowed Indigenous people to engage in their own culture.

 

It’s not surprising that white people found the Ghost Dance alarming. Wovoka’s prophecies spoke to white fears of Indians in rebellion. The dances then, must have seemed intent on stoking exactly the warlike passions that Teller had warned about. The government was clearly still nervous about Native dance ten years after the Wounded Knee massacre because a Cheyenne Chief named Porcupine was arrested attempting to revive the Ghost Dance. His arrest was featured in the New York Times. (Figure 4) Porcupine had been an early advocate of the Ghost Dance in 1890. In 1900, Porcupine renewed the practice with a small number of followers before being arrested.^[53]

The Ghost Dance was a transitional moment in the purpose of Native dance. It clearly held a ceremonial purpose, much as Native dance had done prior for hundreds of years. However, in the context of Native American identity being explicitly eliminated by reservation policy, the dance took on the role of expressing a threatened Native identity. The Ghost Dance was itself an act of rebellion against the imposition of white identity, one that reaffirmed one’s existence as a Native American first and foremost.

Ultimately, the Ghost Dance culminated in the Wounded Knee massacre. The Lakota living on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota had taken to the Ghost Dance as did many tribes in the region. Reservation officials who were concerned about the dance bringing about an Indian uprising sent warnings to Washington of an inevitable war. As a result, troops were ordered onto Pine Ridge. These troops encountered a group of Lakota practicing the Ghost Dance. It is unclear what exactly set off the violence at Wounded Knee, but the massacre saw the murder of between two and three hundred men, women, and children.^[54] This bloody confrontation encapsulated the violence inherent in the United States’ response to Native American cultural identity. Fear over misunderstood cultural expression manifested itself in a violent massacre. The Wounded Knee massacre demonstrates what dance meant to both sides of this conflict. For the U.S. government, Native dance was a dangerous practice that needed to be destroyed even if it resulted in violence. For Natives, it was a sacred part of their culture and an extension of their identity that was to be pursued in spite of dire consequences.

From Wild West Shows to the Modern Powwow

As the Ghost Dance was being suppressed, Native American dance emerged in a new forum: Wild West shows. For instance, Men such as William F. Cody hired Native Americans to travel the East and in Europe where they donned headdresses, rode horses bareback, and performed Native American dances. These shows included two dozen men who had been imprisoned after the Wounded Knee massacre for their participation in the Ghost Dance.^[55] In the Wild West shows, dance was completely removed from its sacred purposes. Instead, the dancers could use these opportunities to maintain dance practices and express their identity as a Native American. Of course, these performances often played on white stereotypes of Native American culture. For this reason, some scholars argue that the Natives who participated were victims of commercial capitalism.^[56] However, this view seems to strip agency from the Native Americans who participated in these shows. The shows offered Indigenous Peoples a chance to engage in cultural practices that were being stripped from them on reservations, and they were able to profit at the same time. This performative, and capitalistic, use of Native dance is far removed from the dance’s traditional implementations. However, these shows were one of the ways that Native Dance was preserved.

Wild West show performances were, in a way, an antecedent to modern performative powwows. Both offer the opportunity to preserve and express Native American culture in a performative context. However, powwows are directed by tribal leaders who seek to honor tradition. Whereas Wild Bill’s Indian shows were owned by white Americans. Modern powwows offer an opportunity to turn the practice of Native American culture into profit. Many modern powwows feature contest dances, with cash prizes going to the winners.

The term powwow is derived from Narragansett, an eastern Algonquin language, and originally referred to curing ceremonies.^[57] Today it has come to be an English expression describing an event featuring singing and social dancing. Powwows originated in the reservation period of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.^[58] Many of the dances featured in powwows are traditional dances. However, powwows also feature modern evolutions of Native dance that play on traditional form. Ultimately, the powwow offers a place for Native Americans to partake in, and express, their cultural identity. The engagement with Native identity is an oft cited reason for dancing amongst powwow dancers. One such dancer participating in the Arizona Festival of 2016 offered, “I did not really have the opportunity to grow up in my own culture … [the powwow] allowed me to attach myself to some kind of Native culture.”^[59]

Powwows feature numerous Native dances. Many of the dances performed, especially at Plains powwows, are War Dances.^[60] One such example is the Men’s Grass Dance. Here, male dancers bend and twist sideways and backward with their knees bent. Traditionally, this dance prepared the grounds for rituals to take place before or after a battle.^[61] Today, performances of the grass dance no longer require preparations for war, just as the Scalp Dance, another modern powwow staple, does not require the taking of scalps. These dances, as performed in powwows, preserve traditions despite having evolved over time. Interestingly enough, War Dances are often used at powwows to honor Native American United States military veterans. Many modern Natives are assertive and proud of both their American and Indigenous identities. These War Dances then, are used in their traditional function in which they honor warriors, while also celebrating and expressing Native identity itself. This syncretic mixture of identity was on full display at the 2018 Lame Deer powwow in which dancers dressed in their military uniforms competed in a War dance contest.^[62]

Just as in the traditional implementations of Native dance, regalia is a central part of the expression of Native identity at powwows. In the example of the Grass Dance, regalia includes headdresses, shirts decorated with yarn and ribbon fringes, and beaded sets of belts, headbands, and cuffs.^[63] The Fancy Dance also makes use of regalia. These dances feature intricate footwork accompanied by dancers wearing elaborate and colorful regalia.^[64] Like the dances they accompany, regalia is an essential aspect of the ceremonial purpose of the dance. However, in the modern context, regalia and dance also function as a preservation and expression of Native identity.

Powwows today generally feature contest dances. Many of these are inter-tribal pow wows that attract Native Americans from various tribes. Contest dances pit performers against one another for monetary prizes. The contest powwow seems to have come to prominence in the 1960s; although, its origins stretch back to the mid nineteenth century where it is believed to have begun in Oklahoma.^[65] Many contest powwows feature intertribal participation. Dance traditions that were once specific to certain tribes have become intertribal in this context. Thus, these dances also strengthen a sense of Pan-Native identity amongst Indigenous Peoples.

Conclusion

Whether it is social dances or contest dances, powwows offer Native Americans the opportunity to express their Native American identities freely and proudly in ways that were denied to their ancestors. Today, white people can freely come to a powwow to marvel at the spectacle, though they may have to endure good-natured humor directed at the white man. This seems a small price to pay given the treatment of Indigenous people by European colonizers.

Native American dance has had a complicated history in the United States. Just as with Native Americans themselves, their dances have gone through forced evolutions and faced direct persecution. Traditional and sacred dances came under threat of cultural erasure from the moment of European contact. These practices were then explicitly singled out for extermination during the nineteenth century when American reservation missionaries and officials sought to destroy Native American identity and replace it with white Christian farmers. Nonetheless, the resistance of Native Americans to cultural extermination has preserved a beautiful and diverse cultural practice. In the process, Native American dance transformed in purpose. Where it once served traditional, social, and ceremonial functions, these dances have come to serve as a stronghold of Native American identity.

 

 

 

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Endnotes

^[1] Martha Salazar, “State Recognition of American Indian Tribes,” National Conference of State Legislatures, accessed November 30, 2021, https://www.ncsl.org/legislators-staff/legislators/quad-caucus/state-recognition-of-american-indian-tribes.aspx.

^[2] Charlotte Heth, Native American Dance Ceremonies and Social Traditions (Colorado: Fulcrum Publishing, 1992), 17.

^[3] Neal Salisbury, “The Indians’ Old World: Native Americans and the Coming of Europeans,” The William and Mary Quarterly 53, no. 3 (July, 1996): 437.

^[4] Salisbury, 444.

^[5] James H. Howard and Gertrude P. Kurath, “Ponca Dances, Ceremonies and Music,” Ethnomusicology 3, no. 1 (January, 1959): 6.

^[6] James H. Merrell, “The Indians’ New World,” in Major Problems in American History Volume I: To 1877, ed. Elizabeth Cobbs and Edward J. Blum (Boston: Cengage Learning, 2017), 47.

^[7] Ron LaFrance, “Inside the Longhouse: Dances of the Haudenosaunee” in Native American Dance Ceremonies and Social Traditions, ed. Charlotte Heth (Colorado: Fulcrum Publishing, 1992), 20.

^[8] LaFrance, 19.

^[9] Pere Joseph Francois Lafitau, An Iroquois Dance and Food Celebration, 1731, etching, Library of Congress, Washington D.C..

^[10] LaFrance, “Inside the Longhouse,” 25.

^[11] LaFrance, 23.

^[12] LaFrance, 25.

^[13] While Harriot’s account is one of the earliest recordings of Native American dance, it does not invest much time in the sacred nature of the practice. Harriot was much more concerned with the lewd image of the mostly nude Algonquin women. However, it still offers insight into the forms in which these dances took place.

John Haines, “The Earliest European Responses to Dancing in the Americas,” U.S. Catholic Historian 30, no. 4 (2012): 13.

^[14] Ann Axtmann, “Performative Power in Native America: Powwow Dancing,” Dance Research Journal 33, no. 1 (2001): 9.

^[15] George Catlin, Buffalo Dance – Mandan, 1861, oil on card mounted on paperboard, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., accessed November 30, 2021, https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.50390.html.

^[16] Howard and Kurath, “Ponca Dances, Ceremonies and Music,” 1.

^[17] Howard and Kurath, 3.

^[18] Howard and Kurath, 3.

^[19] Thomas W. Kavanagh, “Southern Plains Dance: Tradition and Dynamism” in Native American Dance Ceremonies and Social Traditions, ed. Charlotte Heth (Colorado: Fulcrum Publishing, 1992), 109.

^[20] Morris Edward Opler, “A Jicarilla Apache Expedition and Scalp Dance,” The Journal of American Folklore 54, no. 211/212 (1941): 19.

^[21] David Craig, The Report of David Craig to William Blount, March 15, 1792, American State Papers, 2nd Congress, 2nd Session, Indian Affairs: Volume 1, Library of Congress, Washington D.C., accessed November 30, 2021, http://rs6.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsp&fileName=007/llsp007.db&Page=264.

^[22] These Scalp Dances clearly captured the imagination of early Americans. An advertisement in the Gazette of the United States from November 10, 1794 promises viewers the opportunity to witness a Scalp Dance performed at the opera. A similar advertisement from December 26, 1798 in the same paper advertises a Scalp Dance to be performed in the circus. One can easily imagine why Americans were fixated by the idea of the Scalp Dance. It evoked the notion of the savage Indian hell bent on murdering white people.

“For the Benefit of Mrs. Miller Mrs. Hamilton, and Mr. Ryan,” Gazette of the United States and Daily Evening Advertiser, November 10, 1794, accessed November 30, 2021, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026271/1794-11-10/ed-1/seq-2/#date1=1777&index=0&rows=20&words=DANCE+Indian&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=&date2=1801&proxtext=Indian+Dance&y=0&x=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1.; “Rickett’s Circus,” Gazette of the United States and Daily Evening Advertiser, December 26, 1798, accessed November 30, 2021, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83025881/1798-12-26/ed-1/seq-2/#date1=1777&index=1&rows=20&words=DANCE+INDIAN+INDIAN-SCALP-DANCE&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=&date2=1801&proxtext=Indian+Dance&y=0&x=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1.

^[23] Steve Talbot, “Spiritual Genocide: The Denial of American Indian Religious Freedom, from Conquest to 1934.” Wicazo Sa Review 21, no. 2 (2006): 11.

^[24] Colin G. Calloway, First Peoples A Documentary Survey of American Indian History (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2016), 379.

^[25] Calloway, 385-386.

^[26] Calloway, 387.

^[27] Calloway, 397.

^[28] Talbot. “Spiritual Genocide,” 15.

^[29] Haines, John, “The Earliest European Responses to Dancing in the Americas,” 11.

^[30] Jacqueline Shea Murphy, The People Have Never Stopped Dancing Native American Modern Dance Histories (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2007), 31.

^[31] Murphy, 34.

^[32] Talbot, “Spiritual Genocide,” 7.

^[33] Murphy, The People Have Never Stopped Dancing, 36 -37.

^[34] GabriellaTreglia, “Using Citizenship to Retain Identity: The Native American Dance Bans of the Later Assimilation Era, 1900–1933.” Journal of American Studies 47, no. 3 (2013): 777.

^[35] Murphy, The People Have Never Stopped Dancing, 37.

^[36] Murphy, 38.

^[37] Treglia, “Using Citizenship to Retain Identity,” 77.

^[38] Tisa Wenger, “Indian Dances and the Politics of Religious Freedom, 1870-1930,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 79, no. 4 (2011): 852.

^[39] Treglia, “Using Citizenship to Retain Identity, 781.

^[40] Murphy, The People Have Never Stopped Dancing, 50-51.

^[41] Clyde Ellis, “‘We Don’t Want Your Rations, We Want This Dance’: The Changing Use of Song and Dance on the Southern Plains,” The Western Historical Quarterly 30, no. 2 (1999): 144.

^[42] Ellis, 154.

^[43] David Humphreys Miller, Ghost Dance (New York: Van Rees Press, 1959), 26.

^[44] Miller, 27-28.

^[45] James Mooney, Sweat Lodge and Sacrificial Pole Used in Connection with the Ghost Dance, Pine Ridge, South Dakota, 1892, glass negative, Smithsonian Institution, New York.

^[46] Miller, Ghost Dance, 59.

^[47] Miller, 60.

^[48] Pawnee Ghost Dance Dress, 1890, photograph, University of California, San Diego.

^[49] Miller, Ghost Dance, 61.

^[50] Joel W Martin. “Before and beyond the Sioux Ghost Dance: Native American Prophetic Movements and the Study of Religion,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 59, no. 4 (1991): 681.

^[51] Martin, 681

^[52] B.C. Mohrbacher, “The Whole World Is Coming: The 1890 Ghost Dance Movement as Utopia,” Utopian Studies 7, no. 1 (1996): 77.

^[53] “Ghost Dancing Chief Locked Up,” New York Times, August 25, 1900, accessed November 30, 2021, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1900/08/25/102612797.html?pageNumber=7.

^[54] Calloway, First Peoples, 334.

^[55] Calloway, 406.

^[56] Calloway, 406.

^[57] Kavanagh, “Southern Plains Dance,” 105.

^[58] Robert DesJarlait, “The Contest Powwow versus the Traditional Powwow and the Role of the Native American Community,” Wicazo Sa Review 12, no. 1 (1997): 118.

^[59] Cody Gremlin, “INTERVIEW WITH NATIVE AMERICAN DANCERS at ARIZONA FESTIVAL 2016,” Youtube Video, 2:45, April 22, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiwflYdXMn0&ab_channel=CodyGremlin.

^[60] Kavanagh, “Southern Plains Dance,” 109.

^[61] Axtmann, “Performative Power in Native America: Powwow Dancing,” 10.

^[62] Leo Tsinajinnie, “Veterans’ Contest SNL @ Lame Deer 2018,” Youtube Video, 4:40, August 14, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zw6HeOoSYto&t=192s&ab_channel=LeoTsinajinnie.

^[63] Tsinajinnie.

^[64] Kavanagh, “Southern Plains Dance,” 111.

^[65] DesJarlait, “The Contest Powwow versus the Traditional Powwow,” 116, 120.