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Book Review
| Powwow. Edited by Clyde Ellis, Luke Eric Lassiter, and Gary H. Dunham. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005. xv + 309 pp. Notes, bibliographies, index. $45.00, £15.50, paper.)
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The essays in Powwow reveal the intertribal and local nuances of the complex powwow world from historical, cultural, community, and personal perspectives. In doing so, the editors hope to dispel the notion, first articulated by anthropologist James Howard in 1955, that powwows reflect a "process by which socio-cultural entities ... are losing their tribal distinctiveness and in its place are developing a nontribal 'Indian' culture"(p ix). While powwows have developed into a phenomenon with events and performative styles widely shared by Native people all over the country, Powwow demonstrates that these events are vastly more complicated, more divisive, and more compelling, than any such conception of "pan-Indianism" could suggest. |
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The first section of the book, "History and Significance," contains provocative essays that establish the context for the proliferation of powwows in the early to mid-twentieth century and consider the different meanings that they can hold based upon their location and their family, community, or intertribal orientation. Clyde Ellis wonderfully introduces the diversity of powwow culture on the Southern Plains and provides a history of dances that survived and even thrived during early attempts by the federal government to quell them. Also of note, Grant Arndt explores the impact of the commodification of dance by non-Indians on early-twentieth-century Ho-Chunk gatherings. |
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Part II, "Performance and Expression," is comprised of ethnographic essays that demonstrate the multivalent world of powwow semiotics. While some of the essay authors interpret Lakota singing and Omaha dancing, for example, Jason Baird Jackson's piece on Stomp Dances in Oklahoma demonstrates not only the conflicting views of the powwow world among Native people, but also the centrality of importance that performative traditions can hold in the expression of localized community identities. Additionally, Daniel J. Gelo analyzes powwow emcee discourse and Kathleen Glenister Roberts offers a fascinating glimpse into the "Miss Indian World" pageant at the Gathering of Nations in Albuquerque. |
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The final section, "Appropriations, Negotiations, and Contestations," reveals the adaptability of the powwow model in a variety of settings. Samuel R. Cook, John L. Johns, Karenne Wood and Chris Goertzen contribute compelling essays that focus on recently introduced powwows among Virginia and North Carolina tribes and their implications with regard to southern race relations, the process of state recognition, and the borrowing of plains dance styles. Renae Watchman provides one the strongest contributions in her revealing account of German powwow dancers, the potential risks that such appropriations pose for Native people, and the complications presented by Native individuals who encourage the Germans to dance. |
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The tension between conceiving of the powwow as either a "Pan-Indian" or a much more specific articulation of individual, community, and tribally-oriented identity, as well as questions of cultural appropriation by Native and non-Native people alike, are what make this collection such a captivating contribution to the field of twentieth- and twenty-first century American Indian history. Indeed, this glimpse into the powwow complex should spark much attention among scholars to a prominent component of modern Native life—one that, like the persistence of Native communities generally, has thrived on change and innovation as much as continuity and tradition. |
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| John W. Troutman
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| University of Louisiana at Lafayette |
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ISSN 1939-8603
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