"We Don't Want Your Rations, We Want This Dance": The Changing Use of Song and Dance on the Southern Plains

Abstract

Articles You do not currently have access to this article. Download all figures For Southern Plains Indian p eop le, music and dance have historically been vital comp onents in the creation, negotiation, and maintenance of their cultures. This essay examines the roots of the contemp orary p owwow and its connection to traditional forms of dance and belief.

All the Eagles and the Ravens in the House Say Yeah: (Ab)original Hip-Hop, Heritage, and Love

“…Against this background of rupture and resilience, it is how powwow actors interpret the role of dance, not the content of dances, which facilitates the construction of social memory. 37 Echoing Warden' s description of a tradition of Iñupiaq innovation and MC Red Cloud' s (ab)originality, John Troutman argues that it was precisely because of dancers' ability to improvise under oppressive conditions that dance "served as perhaps the most significant anti-assimilation weapon that the Lakotas could wield." 38 As students returned home from residential schools, dancing was a means of reincorporating themselves into Native life, ameliorating the absence of belonging and nurturing self-love.…”

Media, Markets and Powwows

“…NOTES 1. Most commonly, powwows are considered in terms of their role in identity maintenance, contestation, and negotiation (Ellis, 1999;Lerch and Bullers, 1996;Mattern, 1996). Paradoxically, powwows seem to function simultaneously as tribal and national or ethnic markers (Cronk et al, 1987;Sprott, 1994), and as inter-tribal or transcultural institutions (Howard, 1955;Lurie, 1971).…”

“…Howard and Lurie, by contrast, have contributed an understanding of the historical continuity of unique, local and 'traditional' warrior dances into contemporary powwows. Others have built on this theme (see Corrigan, 1970;Dyck, 1979;Ellis, 1999). 2.…”