Powwow
Sam Martin found Texas’ native past in Corpus Christi.
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The Texas Powwow
How many Indians does it take to change a light bulb?”Tim Tall Chief, Master of Ceremonies, jokes over the loudspeakers. “We’re not sure. When we get electricity we’ll let ya know.”
I’m sitting next to Tim at one end of Memorial Coliseum where he’s perched atop the auditorium’s stage with his wife, Paulette Tall Chief, who tabulates contestants’ numbers and keeps score for the judges. Together they’ve emceed or attended an estimated two powwows a month for the last ten years all over the country. Tim is an Osage from Oklahoma and works at the University of Oklahoma Health Science Center, and Paulette is part-Comanche, part-Delaware and was voted Native American Woman of the Year in 1996 by the Oklahoma Federation of Indian Women. When I ask them what they think about the Native American powwow in Texas — 70,000 or less than one percent of the American Indian population in the United States lives in the Lone Star State — they are eager to praise the amount of interest the events attract in the state.
“I don’t see much difference in the Texas powwow than those in other states,” Paulette tells me. “The only difference is the people who come. In Texas there seems to be so many more non-Native Americans at the ceremonies. But I’ve been in education for many years and I’ve always wanted to teach and share our culture with those who are interested. If we share with more people then they’ll know more about our culture. That’s what we want to do.”
Historically speaking, the native people in Texas have never been overly welcome, getting ostracized first by the Spaniards who dropped anchor in the Gulf of Mexico, then by the French in Louisiana, the Mexicans from the south, and finally the Americans from all sides. For the most part they were either killed or driven out of the state, which is probably why there are only three tiny reservations remaining: the Alabama-Coshutta in Livingston; the Kickapoo in Eagle Pass; the Tigua in El Paso; and some loosely-based Cherokee groups around Houston. However, at one time the area now known as Texas was home to quite a few very powerful tribes including the Comanche, the Apache, the Wichita, the Kiowa and Kiowa-Apache, the Waco, the Caddo, the Karankawa, the Tonkawa, and the Atakapan.
At the intertribal powwow in Corpus, the numerous tribes represented include the Kiowa, Kiowa-Apache, Creek, Osage, Comanche, Potowattanie, and the Mescalero-Apache. The powwow is sponsored by the Coastal Bend Council of Native Americans, with grant money from the city as well as from the Texas Arts Commission. It’s part of a circuit which will take the group all over the state this fall to places like Corpus, Houston, Amarillo, Canyon Lake, and Austin.
Watching the crowd gather on the hockey rink-cum-powwow dance circle, it’s obvious that everyone knows or has heard of Tim and Paulette. Friends and acquaintances from past powwows wave toward the stage, at times bringing over gifts and letters to the table. Over the microphone, Tim says hi to familiar faces with a jovial Oklahoma drawl as if he were holding court in his own living room, even ordering a hamburger with cheese and bacon to a friend who’s headed out to lunch at the far end of the cavernous arena. “Robert’s headed to Whataburger, y’all, if anybody needs anything,” he says before introducing the Host Northern drum group from Kansas and Iowa. Afterwards, he turns to me and whispers, “we Indians love grease — can’t get enough of it,” and he switches the microphone back on and urges the entire arena to “be sure and get some of that Indian fry bread, ‘cause that grease’ll make yer skin smooth, yer hair shiny and child-bearin’ a pleasure.”
Finally the Grand Entrance begins and the day’s powwow is officially underway. Some fifty dancers, of every style and dress, fill the arena behind a U.S. color guard saluting Native American Veterans who served overseas. The dress and the colors are magnificent as the dancers circle the center drum, swirling and bobbing in rapturous celebration to the Great Spirit and the gathering of tribes. First, the traditional dancers enter the ritual circle behind Head Dancer Terry Tosigh, a Kiowa Indian about thirty-five years old, who is dressed in a buckskin warrior outfit with a long bone breastplate and a porcupine headdress.
Then the Fancy Dancers come in shaking their rattles and their impressive round eagle feather bustles. Just behind them the women come in single-file carrying fans and securing their place in the sacred hoop of the powwow with a powerful jingle of dresses. The dancers are of every age, from seven years to seventy. Some even carry infants in their arms as they step to the drum.
At one point an eagle feather gets dropped on the ground and the entire ceremony stops. Tim says, “Warren, dropped feather!” and Warren Wapepah, the arena director, runs through the halted, crowded dance floor to retrieve the downed down. A fallen feather is somewhat akin to the American flag touching the ground, and some even believe that the feather becomes an enemy of the person who dropped it and an elaborate ceremony must be performed to protect that person and reinstate the feather’s sacred vitality. On this particular occasion, it’s appropriate enough that one of the veterans dancing behind the color guard retrieve the feather.
When the drum stops, Melvin Kerchee, a Native American elder and a U.S. war veteran, says the prayer and the entire arena is still and quiet as he invokes the spirit of the American Indian heritage. “Grandfather,” he says, “I want to talk to you about men who have suffered. Many years ago I went to school for a short time and towards the end there was a little object they called Fat Man and Little Boy. When they dropped the objects many people died. Back then we called those people our enemy. Now we call them our friends. Grandfather, I want you to take care of our friends. You have taught me to respect others.” This is the spirit of the powwow.
Toward the end of the Grand Entry I realize that everyone involved, whether onlookers or friends of the dancers, has been sitting almost directly on or close to the floor of the arena. No one is possessive or jealous of their space. Everyone is welcome and everyone, once the drums get going, becomes part of the Native American tradition.
When I ask Charles Pratt what he thinks of non-Native Americans coming to the gatherings, he says, “I asked that same question when I was a kid attending powwows in Oklahoma with my grandparents, and the elder who I asked said to me, ‘If a man comes to your door and says ‘I’m hungry’ you let him in and feed him. What difference is it when a man comes to your door and says ‘I’m starved for culture?’”
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