Kahnawake Pow Wow: Aligned like living magnetic needle

Kahnawake Pow Wow - Echoes of a Proud Nation 2011 - POST 4

Previous Posts:
1. Intro to the Kahnawake Mohawk/Kanienkahaka reserve
2. Men I met on the bus rides to Kahnawake

3. Be Excellent in Her Presence

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Here's my only good pics, of the Golden Age 60+ men competing, which started the competition after the honor dances.

Watching the "old boys" (the mc called all the men, of all ages "boys," which of course you wouldn't want a white person to do, but from him it was charming) I immediately thought about the "hipster headdresses" which I've posted about before.

These men were awesome dancers. I think most of them were dancing "traditional" which doesn't require a lot of running around, but (it seems to me) requires precise movements, control, being at one with the musc, and maybe acting? Once the music began they were transformed from guys-hanging-out-giving-fives-and-smoking, to warriors and hunters reliving their battles, and storytelling. I wonder how many years they've been dancing.

 

I was reading yesterday the blog of a Tsilhqot'tin woman, who was mostly raised in urban areas, and works a lot in fashion, blogs about fashion and such--all cool. She likes the use of headdresses in fashion, and wishes more native clothing were integrated into the fashion world, both cause she appreciates their beauty, and when they're beautifully photographed; and because she likes to see the integration of native culture into mainstream culture. 

Of course, she has more right to her views than I to mine, and I like her blog for exposing me to a diversity of views--aboriginal people aren't a "monolith" (good ole university word!) But in one entry she said her people don't have a tradition of war bonnets, and she doesn't do the pow wow circuit, so I wondered if the issue would hit her harder in the gut if that were the case? But I could be totally and INSULTINGLY OFF BASE. [face blush]

You can read Lisa Charleyboy views here, and here. (Though she did protest when a blog went as far as "playing cowboys and Indians" with the fashion images. But I feel like, that's what you're going to get once the fashion world starts down the path of using cultural items they don't understand. Meh.)

It's just that, when I watched these old men, and then the younger men, and then the little boys who had worked so hard on their dancing, I felt like they'd earned the right to their headdresses and to the feathers on their backs. It didn't feel like I was watching a fashion parade.

 

I felt like any of those Coachella-headdress-wearers, if they ever went to a pow wow and sat and really WATCHED these men, they might have got the point. Cause when you're there, and feeling the drums in your belly, and someone is voicing a beautiful song, it's an Experience.

Here's a younger group of men (at some other pow wow) performing men's traditional. It really was my favorite category, I could have watched much more of it. There were some dancers that just completely transfixed me--it was disappointing when the music stopped.

As for the experience, as a white person, I think Bruce Cockburn captures it pretty well, despite the 80s-electronica, with his song "Hoop Dancer." (At least it's Hugh Marsh's electric fiddle, which is still cool sounding.)

There's a time line
Something like vertical, like perpendicular
Cutting through figures shuffling on horizontal plane
Cutting through the survival pride of the dancers
Through the guilty, sentimental warmth of the crowd
Through to some essence common to us, to original man
To perhaps descendants numberless ... or few

Where it intersects the space at hand
This shaman with the hoops stands
Aligned like living magnetic needle between deep past and looming future
Butterfly pierced on each drum beat, wing beat, thunder clap, static spark, storm front, energy circle delineated by leaping limbs