Welcome to the Street Prophets Coffee Hour cleverly hidden at the intersection of religion and politics. This is an open thread where we can share our thoughts and comments about the day. I thought we might start today by looking some American Indian powwow dances.
The powwow is a public celebration and demonstration of community pride in Indian culture and a way of honoring Native American heritage. At the present time, there are powwows held in all fifty states and in most of the Canadian provinces. Some are held on reservations and reserves, while others are held in places such as universities and colleges. Recently, champion powwow dancer Alex Wells (Lil’wat Nation) and his three daughters gave a demonstration of some powwow dances at the Aboriginal Cultural Festival in Victoria, British Columbia. Shown below are some photographs of these demonstrations.
Fancy Dance
The male fancy dancers are usually crowd pleasers with their brightly coloured outfits—Alex describes the colours as looking like “skittles melted on the dashboard”. They also wear two feather bustles: one high between the shoulders and one low, hanging from the waist. This dance originated in the Oklahoma powwows. A good fancy dancer doesn’t spend a lot of time touching the ground. Watching a fancy dancer is often like watching a blur of colours (this was a Canadian demonstration, hence Canadian spelling).
Open thread
This is an open thread—all topics are welcome.