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A pow wow reaches deep into the past

Our Labor Day Weekend Powwow is a traditional one,” said Carol Welsh, Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate, executive director of the Native American Indian Center of Central Ohio. “The original intention of the pow wow was to express our culture and spirituality. But sometimes contest pow wows have such a long list of categories to get through, they can’t fit in giveaways, honor dances and other ceremonies. We take the time for them.” Read more »

More Pow Wow Stories

Schemitzun canceled

MASHANTUCKET, Conn. – The economic downturn has hit the biggest summer pow wow on the East Coast. Read more »

Native Youth Alliance copes with inaugural pow wow adversity

WASHINGTON – For many American Indians, the Jan. 19 pow wow held in the nation’s capital by the American Indian Society of Washington, D.C. was a source of great pride. But for the founders of the Native Youth Alliance, a grassroots organization that strives to improve the health and well-being of young Natives, the event was a time of unwanted adversity. Read more »

Northern California Native wins first Miss Indian World title for tribe

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Brooke Grant, from Los Angeles and Hoopa, Calif. and member of the Hoopa, Yurok, Karuk and Chippewa tribes, was crowned Miss Indian World at the 26th Annual Gathering of Nations. Read more »

Healing Powwow

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. – When attending a pow wow, many are coming together for a celebration of culture, prayer, ceremony, songs, dancing and goodwill. To others, a pow wow is a gathering of old friends and a chance to reconnect with people you only see a few times a year. Read more »

Lakota ledger art selected for pow wow poster

BISMARCK, N.D. – A work of contemporary ledger art has been selected to represent the 40th Annual United Tribes International Powwow. “We Protect our Families” is a work by artist Tom Haukaas, Rosebud Lakota. Read more »

The past endures in a present-day pow wow

DENVER – Once a trade route, always a trade route, or so it seems along the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains, where contemporary pow wows recall the rendezvous of old that joined trappers, traders, Plains Natives, and a few European visitors for days of selling, feasting and fun. Read more »

Denver March Powwow begins the season

DENVER – For more than 35 years, the Denver March Powwow has been the unofficial kickoff of the pow wow season, and it was no different for 2009. The first weekend of spring brought sunny skies, temperatures in the 70s and more than 2,000 dancers, singers and artists from across Indian country to Denver. Read more »

Life on the Powwow Highway: A family affair

In March 2008, 15-year-old Amanda Joy Ironstar was crowned Princess of the Annual Denver March Powwow. Ironstar, who has dreamed of this honor since she was a small child, works hard, keeps her grades up at school and participates in pow wows and dance exhibitions almost every week. Nevertheless, Amanda didn’t achieve her level of excellence by herself. She and her siblings are inspired and supported in their efforts by their parents and relatives who view pow wow as a family tradition. Read more »

Denver March Powwow reaps benefits of executive director’s unique experience

DENVER, Colo. – When Grace Gillette contemplates the arc of her working life, she sees an organic connection from her beginning on the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota to her position now as executive director of the famous Denver March Powwow. Read more »

Pink shawl powwow

WELLPINIT, Wash. – Pow wow can mean different things. It usually involves ones roots and culture, family and friends, dancing and drumming, playing stick games, competition. Sometimes it adds additional dimensions. That’s the case in Wellpinit, on the Spokane Reservation, when a pow wow was put together last fall to promote breast cancer awareness and to recognize those who had beaten the disease or to remember the families of those who were lost to breast cancer. Read more »