Powwow

(c) May 7 2001 Greg Utrecht

Yesterday I attended the 23rd annual Southern California Indian Council Powwow. The Powwow was held on the grounds of the Orange County Fair. Someone said that there are more American Indians living in the Orange/Riverside County areas than anywhere else. I know that where I used to work 2 of the 100 employees were more or less full blooded Indians and one other that I knew talked about his more or less well known and reputable Cherokee Indian background.

The Indians at the Powwow were peaceful.

On entering the grounds I walked through an open area with grass and trees and food stands. You could get Indian fry bread or Indian fry bread tacos. Indian fry bread is a piece of flat dough thrown in a deep fat fryer, and Indian tacos are a piece of dough thrown in the fat fryer with refried beans and other toppings. Three bucks for the hunk of bread and two bucks more for bread with the toppings. That was all they had in the five or six food booths: the only choice you could make was between Mary's Indian Fry Bread, or the Begay Family Indian Fry Bread, or Tony's Fry Bread and so on, all in a row right next to each other.

After walking through this area I entered the Indian crafts booths, where Indians were selling the usual jewelry, T-Shirts, drums and tomahawks, flutes, pots and vases and pre-recorded music. Native Pride was a recurring theme. I made a rough estimate that there were just over 100 booths, more than you can find in any one place anywhere in Arizona or New Mexico and the prices were lower here too. Many booths were crowded out front three or four people deep and lots of people were buying things for themselves and their kids. There was some good quality stuff there and I could have spent a few hundred dollars if I would have had it. I ended up buying a small peace pipe which I have wanted one for some time, and a key fob made from an Indian head nickel. They didn't have any rugs for some reason.

Beyond that was an arena with three small portable grandstands. Here there were six or eight hundred people watching Indian dancers in traditional garb. Well, some of the dancers were in traditional garb that looked like it was 30 years old and had been well cared for. Others were wearing outfits that looked like bright nylon and polyester outfits with fringes made out of yarn as if the wearer had just come from Indian K-Mart. Others were wearing outfits you'd think Jackie Chan would have selected if he was an Indian. I did see some spectacular head dresses and other feather arrangements which were spectacular to look at when the men danced. I think this is more Indian dancers than you can find in one place anywhere, including Gallup, New Mexico where they are proud of their Friday evening Indian dancing.

They all danced to Indian drums boom thump boom and Indian singing hiy-a-loo hay-uh lee-aye in a big circle about a hundred dancers six abreast with the more energetic ones on the outside moving slowly around this circle wearing numbers so the chiefs could keep track of who danced the most and give them prizes. The dancing seemed effortless and hypnotic and energizing and I know I watched it for about an hour and it didn't tire me out at all. They wore bells on their knees in time with the music and when they stopped and walked around it mingled nicely with the applause.

Later the young Indian maidens had their dance and they all had little cone shaped pieces of tin, several hundred to each dress. When they walked it sounded just like going to the recycling center and you could think it would be tough for any young braves to get very far with that system of protecting the young maidens. They danced better in addition to looking better and being better dressed. They did the heel to toe, and crossing ankles, and the triple hop, and half turns with one hand on the hip and one hand holding a feather fan, while the braves just did the stomp-stomp, stomp-stomp or the stomp-slide-stomp, stomp-slide-stomp. The maidens were much better.

Later I heard an Indian story teller who was quite good. It was too bad he wasn't announced better, or that they charged money to get a program because he deserved a much bigger audience. By the time his little circle was full, it was time for him to finish. He told stories like the owl and the boy coming home from school, why catfish have flat heads, how mosquitoes came about, how dogs choose their president and so on. He told one story in Navaho and then translated it. When he told it in Navaho he used a drum with both a drumstick and a rattle in his other hand. I don't think he memorized the English words for the stories but just chose the translation as he went. I thought the stories were pretty interesting and a lot different than the kind of stories you hear on Veronica's Closet on CBS. Sadly he was one of the Indians that had just come from K-Mart and he was a small hunched over Indian and not much to look at. Good sound effects though.

It was worth the six bucks to get in.