Neatly lettered signs along the highways that sweep through the Southwest announce the boundaries of 50 Indian reservations, each a distinct and thriving nation within a larger nation. Other signs advertise Indian-run casinos, galleries overflowing with Indian artwork and cafes selling Indian food. At highway rest areas, quiet children sell cedar-bead necklaces at homemade stands.
Many Native Americans in the Southwest still live in their sacred homelands, though their cultures continue to change and adapt. Yet, to non-Indians, citizens of these reservations remain largely a mystery, a people shrouded in centuries-old stereotypes and misconceptions.
The best way for a non-Indian traveler to reach past the old romanticism and the new gloss of franchise culture to the heart of what it means to be an American Indian is to venture into gatherings of native people.
At these public occasions–powwows, fairs and dances–nearly all Southwestern tribes welcome outsiders. Sharing and giving are fundamental Indian values, and the power of dances and prayers increases with the numbers of people of good heart attending. Conversations start easily–over food, crafts or kids. Prepare to be teased and joshed, too, for Indian people do not live up to their stoic stereotype. They don’t worry about being politically correct either; nearly everyone uses the old misnomer “Indian” without apology.
Whatever the event, the People (as the members of nearly every tribe call themselves) treasure what they describe to outsiders as “Indian doings.” Pride in ethnicity and a sense of connection to ancestors make these the grand events of Indian country.
Powwows often are the easiest entry point for outsiders. Flamboyant and seductive, the powwow is an intertribal melting pot. A Plains Indian tradition, these celebrations of dance, song, costume, family, military service, patriotism and community now occur wherever American Indians live, crucial for urban Indians far from their tribal traditions but in need of some way to nourish their ethnicity.
In the Southwest, powwows often occur in conjunction with more traditional gatherings, like the June Ute Mountain Bear Dance in Towaoc, Colo., or the initiation into adulthood of young Mescalero Apache women at their July 4 Rodeo in Mescalero, N.M.
At powwows, family pride spills over into stories. At one dance, Mike Santistevan, a young Southern Ute, showed me his heirloom beaded belt, worn by Chief Antonio Buck in a Sun Dance almost a century ago.
Be inconspicuous, dress modestly, but sit as close as you can to the dancers and the drum groups, close enough to feel the swish of the fringes and the rhythm of the drum. That drumbeat is the heartbeat of the Earth, transporting dancers and watchers into a realm of joy, uniting them with the powers of land and animal and spirit.
Watch the dancers’ Grand Entry from high seats in an indoor arena or in the makeshift stands at an outdoor powwow, beginning with flags, an honor guard and powwow “princesses,” a competitive honor for young women. Dancers move to the elemental thrum of the bass drum struck in unison by the drum group, who also sing in falsetto chorus.
The men lead, their attire matching their specialty: buckskins and beads of traditional dancers, bustles and roached hair of fancy dancers and acrylic-dyed yarn fringes of gyrating grass dancers.
Women come next; some wearing traditional costumes with extraordinary beadwork. These women dance with great dignity, while others take flight as fancy dancers with shawls swirling and still others move with the sensuous tinkle of jingle dancers, wearing rows of metal cones shaped from the lids of chewing tobacco cans.
Dancers may compete for prize money, but most come for the camaraderie and sense of spiritual elation. When thousands of Indian people from around the country fill the huge basketball arena at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque at the annual Gathering of Nations Powwow in April–one of several powwows claiming to be the biggest of all–a powerful sense of Indianness charges the space.
Powwows will not help in understanding differences between tribal cultures, but Tony Ringlero, a social worker from Phoenix, epitomizes what powwow can do for Indian people.
He is San Carlos Apache/Salt River Pima and a member of the Mormon church. In high school he lived in California, trying out a diversity of roles and identities. It wasn’t until he went to Brigham Young University and met a Sioux/Winnebago friend, who introduced him to powwow dancing and northern Plains mentors, that he found a satisfying way to express his Indian identity.
In the Southwest, many tribes–especially the more dispersed peoples like Navajo, Ute and Apache–have incorporated powwows into their annual tribal fair, a combination of carnival midway, tribal dance, entertainment, rodeo and harvest festival.
Fairs typically happen in spring or fall. More tribally specific than powwows, they provide another entry point for non-Indians visiting Indian country.
Biggest by far is the Navajo Nation Fair, held each September in Window Rock, Ariz. It attracts 200,000 people, some 85 percent of them Navajo. Leo Watchman Jr., manager of the 1996 fair, sums up the spirit of the event as “crowds and smiles.”
“The fair is a chance to see Navajo people at their best,” says Jonathan Dover, a Navajo security officer along the midway. The same could be said for each tribe and its fair.
Last September, the Navajo Nation Fair marked its 50th anniversary, beginning with a parade. Thousands of people line the route–arguably the world’s largest gathering of American Indian people and “very much for tourists,” Watchman says.
Each of the fair events has a distinctly Navajo twist. The Miss Navajo Nation contest, which runs throughout the fair, includes standard Miss America-style categories like evening gowns and knowledge of current events. The four contestants for Miss Navajo Nation 1996 also were judged on frybread making and sheep butchering.
In the Song and Dance Arena, pairs of dancers circle slowly around the ring. The announcer speaks Navajo, the songs are in Navajo (accompanied by simple small drums) and the contestants are Navajo, dressed in full traditional regalia, from moccasins to hair buns.
“Younger people really get into the rhythm; high step footwork gives them the spirit,” coordinator Pat Ashley says. “Older people just walk like senior citizens, and that’s understandable.”
Song and Dance is not sacred, but a way of socializing, with songs that tell stories from Navajo life. For the Navajos participating and watching the dancing, it’s part of their heritage, as familiar to them as anyone would be with their own family traditions.
The carnival midway is the place for teenagers to promenade and friends to meet. Along with familiar state-fair standbys such as hand-dipped corn dogs and Pennsylvania Dutch funnel cakes, food booths sell roasted corn, mutton-and-squash stew and Navajo tacos–frybread heaped with meat, beans, chiles, lettuce, tomatoes and cheese.
An All-Indian Professional Rodeo pays the highest prizes on the Indian rodeo circuit. The 3- to 5-year-olds compete in a miniature version, including timed bareback rides on lambs (the “woolly riders”) and a barrel race on stick horses.
Big-name musicians play here. The 1996 Creedence Clearwater concert drew a crowd of 10,000. (But the hot ticket of the week–testimony to the youth of Night Performance on the last evening “is the place to start sharing different cultural perspectives,” according to Mae Myron, one of the performance’s organizers. Apache Mountain Spirit dancers, the Gaan, energize the arena, leaping dramatically before huge bonfires. Pueblo dancers, Aztec dancers from Los Angeles and Los Voladores–fliers from Mexico who twirl from the top of a high pole–come to join the troupes of traditional Navajo dancers.
A tribal fair may seem like just another state fair, albeit one attended mostly by Indian people. But whatever their ethnicity, fairgoers comfortable with “crowds and smiles” share common ground, and this breaks down barriers, creating a way in for travelers.
Closer to the heart of Indian Country are the sacred dances. Many tribes perform ancient rituals in private. Others, like the Yaqui of southern Arizona, dance publicly as deer dancers, Pascolas–the “ritual hosts” of the fiesta–and the Mexican-influenced matachines, but demand great respect from outsiders, almost always prohibiting photography.
Pueblo people still dance in village plazas as they have since Pueblo people were known as the Anasazi, dancing in prehistoric cliff dwellings. Today, 30 Pueblo communities are scattered between Taos, N.M., and northern Arizona’s Hopi Mesas.
Around Santa Fe, the Pueblos closest to non-Indian towns took their most sacred dances underground centuries ago, away from the eyes of inadequate understanding. Social dances often remain open, but the most predictable ones occur each year on the Feast Day of the village’s patron saint.
What at first may seem colorful and exotic to non-Indians may soon seem monotonous. Stay with these dances, however. Let the sensual experience of the drum, the costumes, the feeling–the connection each dancer has made to the corn, kachina (spirit messenger) or animal they embody–wash over you. Remember that Pueblo people have danced in the Southwest for a thousand years and more; remember that your presence matters.
Always ask tribal officials before bringing out a camera. Some New Mexico pueblos allow photos for a fee. But so many tourists have defied the decades-old ban on photography at Hopi kachina dances (more properly called katsinas), that Hopi people now often close dances to outsiders.
Each village makes its own rules, however, so when you visit the Hopi mesas, inquire at the village Community Development Office. You may come at a lucky moment and be invited to share one of the most profound experiences on the continent–an ongoing religious tradition deeply rooted in time and place.
New Mexico’s largest pueblo, Zuni, also dances for all humanity–to restore harmony. Joe Herrera, Cochiti Pueblo artist, sums this up for all Pueblos and all traditional dances: “We do it for the whole universe.”
Zuni leaders reluctantly limit non-Indian visitors to dances in order to safeguard religious well-being and privacy–but always ask, for the rules change.
I remember a visit to Zuni for the midwinter house-blessing, the night dance of the towering Shalako katsinas. I walked around the village in frosty darkness, stopping to warm myself by a fire in a generous Zuni’s front yard. The stars were brilliant, the air brittle with cold.
In the darkness beyond, two katsinas rustled by, their ruffs of raven feathers stiff beneath domed and beaked heads, the swing of embroidered kilts and the soft clatter of rattles marking their passage. These two War Brothers of the nadir and zenith brandished swords of green yucca leaves, menacing anyone who dared to fall asleep during the dance of the Shalako.
The warrior katsinas entered the nearby Shalako house and as the door opened, a shaft of white light leaped out across the packed earthen yard. I glimpsed close-packed Pueblo, Navajo and Anglo bodies–all dwarfed by the 10-foot Shalako dancing behind them, an immensely powerful and appealing being with wide eyes, buffalo horns and an eagle-feather headdress.
The open door let out a gust of warm, stuffy air laden with the smell of roast mutton, a phrase or two of drumbeat and chant, the clacking of the great Shalako’s beak. Then the door closed and the bonfire leaped up to the stars.
Whether witnessing an age-old ceremony unique to one culture, sharing a meal at a tribal fair picnic table, or sitting next to a family watching their young ones dance in an intertribal powwow, I feel pride and warmth coming from Southwest Indian people. They struggle with myriad social and economic challenges, but they know who they are, they know where their home is and they feel their link to their past.
They are not the “vanishing people.” They are still here–fierce in their belief that families and land and heritage matter. With an open mind, non-Indians can share their pride, their joy and their power. This gives me hope for our future together in this American land, home to us all.
DETAILS ON POWWOWS
– Gallup, N.M.: Twenty-five miles from Window Rock, Gallup provides the standard array of chain motels and franchise restaurants as well as numerous Indian arts-and-crafts outlets. America West flies to Gallup from Phoenix. Albuquerque, with its airport and rental cars, lies 140 miles to the east. Gallup Visitor’s Bureau: 800-242-4282; 505-863-3841.
– Gallup Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial: Another chance to see dances, rodeo and, especially, a major competitive exhibit and sale of Southwest Indian arts and crafts. More commercial than the Navajo Nation Fair. Held annually on the second weekend in August at Red Rock State Park, Gallup; 800-233-4528; 505-863-3896.
– Gathering of Nations Powwow: April 24-26, Albuquerque, N.M.; 505-836-2810.
– Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site, 30 miles west of Window Rock at Ganado, Ariz., is another superb place to buy Navajo and Pueblo arts and crafts; 520-755-3475.
– Mescalero Apache Girls’ Puberty Ceremonial and Rodeo: July 4th weekend, Mescalero, N.M.; 505-671-4494.
– Navajo Nation Fair Office: Contact the fair office for schedule and reservations for the 68 primitive campsites that terrace the sandstone ridge above the fairgrounds ($30 for the week of the fair, fine views and a chance to visit with the dancers in the Night Performance, who stay in tepees along the ridge). A smaller, similar celebration happens in Window Rock on July 4. P.O. Box 2370, Window Rock, Ariz. 86515; 520-871-6478; fax 520-871-6729.
– Navajo Nation Inn: The one motel in Window Rock, generally booked a year in advance for fair week. Call anyhow; you might call just after a cancellation. P.O. Box 2340, Window Rock, Ariz. 86515; 800-662-6189 or 520-871-4108; fax 520-871-5466.
– Navajo Tribal Museum/Navajo Arts and Crafts: Housed together next door to the Navajo Nation Inn. The museum orients visitors to tribal culture and history; the tribal arts and crafts outlet is a good place to buy rugs, jewelry, sandpaintings and books. Call 520-871-6673 for the museum or 520-871-4095 for arts and crafts.
– O’odham Tash: Each February, on the weekend before President’s Day, the southern Arizona Pima and Tohono O’odham tribes join forces with the businesses of Casa Grande, Ariz., for a Sonoran Desert Indian Fair, with dances, powwow, rodeo, parade and “chicken scratch” dances, a sort of mariachi polka; 520-836-4723.
– Pueblo dances: Scheduled throughout the year; for current information, consult the schedule of events in New Mexico Magazine or call the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center at 505-843-7270; the Hopi Cultural Center at 520-734-2401; and the Zuni Pueblo Department of Commerce at 505-782-4481.
– Ute Mountain Ute Bear Dance and powwow: Towaoc, Colo., early June; 970-565-3751.
