Exploring the Siletz Annual Powwow

[Integral]

Last night my family and I visited the Siletz annual Powwow. Some of you may not be familiar with these celebrations. They are gatherings of the local native American peoples for a night of traditional chanting and dancing and food. All are welcome to attend, the dance/regaila competions are interspersed with "inter tribal" dances where everyone is encourage to join the fun.

The Regailias include traditional and non traditional dress:
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This is what iss called a "jingle" dress all of those things hanging from the dress are bells. I am not sure how traditional this is, perhaps some coastal tribes would have used sea shells.

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This Powwow in not one of the largest or perhaps well known but still Native Amearicans were in attenance from as far as Oklahoma. The grounds are situated atop a hill in the midst of the Oregon Coast range:
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There are no age restrictions young and old, men and women all participate:
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There are many how wonder what their ancestors would have worn given modern technology:
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The competions are multifacted, in that the dancers are competing but the drums and chanting for the dancers is a competion as well. Each drum is "manned" by 8-10 people, all joining in on the chanting and drumming.
[URL][PLAIN]http://home.comcast.net/~integral50/powwow/pic7.JPG

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Looks fun!

 

[Integral]

it is, we have been attending with some regularity for at least 10 years. This time we went to the evening dance session, to avoid the 90F afternoon. Unfortunately I forgot that when the sun sets it gets cool, I was wearing a sleeveless shirt, and light shorts, all set for a 90F afternoon, not a 65F evening... I got froze out and we left around 11:30pm, it looks like the fun was just getting started. The mens "fancy dance" is the top event and held till last. This is where the men with very elaborate regalia do their thing.

BTW these are drug & alcohol free events.

 

[Integral]

Ivan,
How are the blackberries looking?

 

[hypatia]

I love the jingle cone dancers! My Grandmother is a shawl dancer, the more solemn of the dancers.
At one pow wow I went to, mid-dance a eagle feather fell off a dancer and when it landed on the ground, a hush fell across the field,not even a whisper. One of the Chiefs picked it up and did a blessing for the dancer who was thoughtless enough not to secure the feather better.. For the dancer, it was worse then breaking a mirror..its a life time of ill fortune!

 

[Ivan Seeking]

BTW these are drug & alcohol free events.

Oh sure sure...



I need to check the berries but they should be pretty good about now. Are you ready for some picking? We should have a truckload this year.

 

[Evo]

The competions are multifacted, in that the dancers are competing but the drums and chanting for the dancers is a competion as well. Each drum is "manned" by 8-10 people, all joining in on the chanting and drumming.
[PLAIN]http://home.comcast.net/~integral50/powwow/pic7.JPG[/QUOTE]A little "plug" for Pepsi?

Great pictures Integral. I got to attend some festivities at the Indian Reservation for the Alabama-Coushatta Indians in Texas.

 

[Evo]

I need to check the berries but they should be pretty good about now. Are you ready for some picking? We should have a truckload this year.

Oooh, can I come pick blackberries? I still have my croquet mallet.

Blackberries grew wild along the cliff edges around a lake at my parent's lake house. My sister and I would take turns holding each other by the ankles as we leaned over the cliff edge gathering berries - the mallet is for whacking the bushes first to chase off snakes, the correct procedure is to give the bush a whack, scream at the tops of your lungs while running away waiting for the snakes to leave, running back, and repeating the process until you're certain nothing is in there.

I make a great blackberry pie.

 

[klusener]

The pictures make me sad, remind me of poor Chief Seattle's speech of 1854. :(

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I make a great blackberry pie.

Well, because I broke my foot right about spraying time this year, I would imagine that we have about 1000 linear feet of berry plants along the fence lines and creek. So com'on over!

 

[dduardo]

Where there any slots on the premises? I know the indians in florida love to throw these types of events to get people to enter the casinos.

 

[Integral]

The pictures make me sad, remind me of poor Chief Seattle's speech of 1854. :(

Unfortunately that speech is not actually the words of Chief Seattle, or any other Native American but those of a 1971 screen writer.


snopes

 

[Integral]

Where there any slots on the premises? I know the Indians in florida love to through these types of events to get people to enter the casinos.

No slots and very little commercialization. The booths marketing various goods, beads, Indian Tacos ect... are more on the line of a Saturday Market.

 

[klusener]

Unfortunately that speech is not actually the words of Chief Seattle, or any other Native American but those of a 1971 screen writer.


snopes

Yes, many versions of the speech do exist, but I am specifically referring to the one that appeared in a 1887 newspaper. Do I believe that this version is the exact script of the speech he made? Maybe not, but I think it does provide a clue to what he meant to say.

 

[zoobyshoe]

The people in your shots have some serious regalia, Integral. The war bonnets all look like authentic golden eagle feathers to me.

Jingle cones like the ones shown are, of course, not a pre-Columbian thing, but neither are Indian horses or beads. They sometimes make the cones themselves, if they are fairly spiritual, although they are also commercially made and can be bought, just like beads. I read the story of one man who made such cones for his daughter's dance dress out of tin can lids and bottoms, in response to a dream he had in which he saw her in such a dress. I don't know exactly how he curled them up like that, but I bet they have a technique, and maybe a tool for it. I would also bet, there is a pre-contact precursor to tin cones that was supplanted by them, but I've never run into mention of what it was; shells or whatever might have worked.

The spectaclar beadwork on their clothing is all done with European (or possibly japanese, lately) manufactured little glass beads. These beads didn't supplant "wampun" as some people sometimes suppose, but porcupine quill embroidery. Everything now done with beads used to be done with naturally dyed porcupine quills, that were sewn onto the soft leather using several special techniques, with the different colors of quills arranged into the geometic symbols still in use. Quills could also be woven or braided.

No one much does quillwork anymore. Personally, I like the examples of it I've seen better than beadwork, but I think the porcupines are happier.

 

[arildno]

Yes, many versions of the speech do exist, but I am specifically referring to the one that appeared in a 1887 newspaper. Do I believe that this version is the exact script of the speech he made? Maybe not, but I think it does provide a clue to what he meant to say.

Here's a link I found to this version, along with Dr. Smith's comments:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/2344/chiefs4.htm

 

[zoobyshoe]

Here's a link I found to this version, along with Dr. Smith's comments:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/2344/chiefs4.htm

Snopes points out that Smith's report of the speech was not made until 33 years later, and was a "reconstruction" from notes he had made at the time of the speech. Smith was well known to be quite poetic, Seatle was not, nor was the Native language in which the original is suspected of having been deliverd, a very poetic one.

In other words, the content of Smith's report may be accurate, but he probably inflated the eloquence and poetry of it according to his own taste.

 

[arildno]

Snopes points out that Smith's report of the speech was not made until 33 years later, and was a "reconstruction" from notes he had made at the time of the speech. Smith was well known to be quite poetic, Seatle was not, nor was the Native language in which the original is suspected of having been deliverd, a very poetic one.

In other words, the content of Smith's report may be accurate, but he probably inflated the eloquence and poetry of it according to his own taste.

I never said anything about whether I thought the speech as given by Smith was genuinely Seattle's or mostly Smith's own.

The tradition of (at times, higly creative) "reconstruction" of speeches long after the event is ancient; one might still, however, think of the 1887 version as of historical interest in that it quite possibly contains some of Seattle's own sentiments, if not his words.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I never said anything about whether I thought the speech as given by Smith was genuinely Seattle's or mostly Smith's own.

I'm not sure why you're pointing this out. My post was intended to highlight the fact that the Smith report of the speech itself, of which all other versions are mere rewrites, was almost certainly given all its emotional charge, the manner of expression that might make people want to cry, by the poetic "translator", Smith.

 

[arildno]

I'm not sure why you're pointing this out. My post was intended to highlight the fact that the Smith report of the speech itself, of which all other versions are mere rewrites, was almost certainly given all its emotional charge, the manner of expression that might make people want to cry, by the poetic "translator", Smith.

Very probably correct.