1957 Flagstaff All-Indian Powwow Program

              AYfll (&lHI7flY
AYIJElD'll(C]IAVIB AJlIAlAVI!
There are some cases a doctor can't cure, but Reddy can! He's
your medicine man for household misery. He'll take the stoop,
stretch and strain out of washday with an electric washer-dryer.
He'll take care of your cooking with an electric range. He'll clean
the house, heat it in winter, cool it in summer . Yet the average
cost of all his service is lower today than it was 15 years ago!
Service from Public Service is still your biggest household bargain.
~ ~ ARIZONA
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~ YOUR LOCALLY MANAGED TAXPAYING UTILITY
Plains Indians are unexcelled for beautiful tribal costumes. The women wear tanned doeskin dresses that hark back to the early
days of the white man in the United States, and earlier. Quillwork and porcupine quill decorations are also very old. Beadwork
came after the traders had brought in goods, but it has long been used effectively by Indian women of the Plains Tribes.
3
Information On
WHAT IS THE POW-WOW?
The Pow-Wow is a great Indian celebration staged
each year at the Flagstaff Pow-Wow grounds in the
city park at the foot of the San Francis~o peaks, sur­rounded
by the largest Ponderosa pine forest in the
United States.
The Pow-Wow features daily street parades, after­noon
rodeos and night ceremonial programs.
Only Indians are permitted to participate in the big
show, but white spectators are welcome.
WHERE DO WE GET TICKETS?
Tickets for all six Pow-Wow performances have been
on sale since early June at the Pow-Wow office at the
Monte Vista Hotel and the office of the Chamber of
Commerce, 101 W. Santa Fe, just west of the Railroad
depot.
Beginning July 4, at 9 A.M., tickets are on sale only
at the ticket office in the grandstand at the Pow-Wow
grounds.
The Pow-Wow
Prices are: Reserved seats for rodeo and ceremonial
performances, $3 each; boxes, $5 per person; $30 for a
complete box with six seats. Bleacher tickets, $2; chil­dren,
$1.
WHERE DO WE GET INFORMATION?
The general office of the Pow-Wow organization is
maintained at the grandstand from July 4 through July
6. vVhen you have a specific question or request, go to
the Pow-Wow office. You may also secure information
concerning the Pow-Wow at the Chamber of Commerce
office.
PHOTOGRAPHS
During the parades which are held each day at noon
through the downtown streets of the .city, you may shoot
any picture you desire. During the rodeos you can
shoot your pictures from the grandstand, but you will
not be permitted to enter the arena unless you have
made special arrangements with the Pow-Wow board.
Continued on next Page
Indians love a display of skill, eSfecially if other Indians are the actors. Mingled emotions are depicted on the faces of this Pow­Wow
rodeo audience, from mild interest to amusement and consternation.
4
INFORMATION-Continued
from Page 4
GENERAL INFORMATION ...
A non-profit organization of Flagstaff businessmen,
"Pow-Wow, Inc.," handles the countless details which
go into preparation of the big three-day celebration.
These men devote many weeks each year to carrying
on this work, which results in the fast-moving, exciting,
colorful events making up the big show. They work
entirely without pay.
INDIAN CAMP
One of the most interesting features of the Pow­Wow
is the huge Indian camp in the pine forest sur­rounding
the Pow-Wow grounds. You will enjoy walk­ing
through the camp, but before you take any pic­tures,
be sure and secure permission from the Indians.
If you treat them with proper respect and friendliness
you'll find they quickly respond. '
WHO STAGES IT?
More than 10,000 Indians representing a score or
more of southwestern and western tribes swarm to Flag­staff
early in July to put on the great tribal get-together,
the Southwest All-Indian Pow-Wow.
Who Are Members of the Pow-Wow CommiHee?
The men who work for months each year to stage
the Pow-Wow represent a wide variety of business, pro­fessional
and other interests. They include Ted Bab­bitt,
merchant; Neil V. Christensen, attorney; T. M.
Knoles, Jr., bakery proprietor; Andy Wolf, insurance
man; Bill Fennell, appliance dealer; Earl F. Insley,
director of athletics, Arizona State College; committee
secretary, Al C. Grasmoen, operator of the world-fam­ous
Arizona Snow Bowl winter sports area and proprie­tor
of Ski and Spur guest ranch; Robert Prochnow,
business man; Sturgeon Cromer, superintendent of
schools; Noel Miller, accountant. Mr. Wolf is announc­er
for the rodeos and ceremonial programs.
Navajo wagons, once a common everyday sight on Flagstaff streets, are now seen mainly during Pow-Wow time. The little desert
horses, gradually losing place in the life of the Navajo because of the pickup truck's speed and comfort~ are pressed into use dUrr~
ing th, Pow-Wow. .
5
Introduction
To The Pow--Wow
By Vada F. Carlson
If you have never lived in Indian Country, if you
have never heard the hollow, fascinating throbbing of
Indian drums, if you have never seen moccasined feet
stamping out the old ceremonial dances of the Indian
in the light of great bonfires, prepare yourself for a
treat, for this is the Indian show of shows- this is the
Southwest All-Indian Pow-\Vow in the heart of Indian
Country.
This coming together of the tribesmen of the South­west
at Flagstaff is an annual event. It is a spectacle
extraordinary. A sight to be seen by the fortunate and
remembered ever after. For it is for and by the In­dians.
The white brother looks on; he takes no part
in any of the rodeo competitions; the dances are not for
him, except as a spectator.
In the history of the American Indian the annual
celebration- the gathering of the tribes and the stag­ing
of ceremonials- has always been an important and
significant yearly event. And this, the Pow-Wow, i
not just the gathering of one tribe. Indians of the
Southwest-Navajos. Hopis, Apaches, Papagoes, Pimas,
Mohave, Lagunas, Zunis, Jemez and others- are joined
by tribesmen from the north and east. The Sioux come
from the north, from the Pine Ridge reservation. The
Arapahoes come from Oklahoma and Wyoming. The
Cheyennes come for the express purpose of doing their
fast War Dance. The Lagunas excel in the Hoop
Dance.
Throughout the three days of the Pow-Wow the
spectators are cauC!ht up in a whirl of exciting color.
For this occasion the Indians of every tribe wear their
most beautiful costumes. There is n~thine; drab about
Indians. They have a flair for showmanship and a love
for color. Feather bustles and shields are made up
with all the arresting colors of the rainbow. Navajo
women adorn themselves with new velvet blouses that
glisten in the sun above their full skirts of satin. About
their necks they wear their "bankroll" - strand on
strand of turquoise and silver and precious coral. Their
wrists are loaded with beautiful bracelets and their
fingers are decked with turquoise set rings.
Not to be outdone, their men folk wear wide concho
belts of silver, set with turquoise and they, too, wear
the significant squash blossom necklace of silver and
turquoise, worth many a day's salary.
Hopi people come down from their pueblo villages
on the mesas to the north, bringing their hand woven
ceremonial kirtles and sashes which they wear during
the dancing. They bring with them the high boots of
the women; pure white, softly tanned doe skin foot-
( Continued to Page 11)
Not all Navajos have the stern aestheticism of this oldster with
his rattle ' and feathers and ornate silver belt. his clay-daubed
body and moccasin-clad feet. However, this man is a good
example of the nomadic Navajos, ' whose life seems to tend to
kee.p them thin of leg and flat of stomach.
Zunis, the women dressed in their old-t'ime tribal costumes of off-the-shoulder hand-riJoven dresses, bright shoulder scarfs and thick,
wrapped white boots, are always a colorful addition to celebration crowds. Especially fascinating to on-lookers is the stately man­ner
of the women, who carry pottery bowls on their heads with assurance and poise.
7
Ceremonial Dances
Each year many beautiful ceremonial dances of the
Indians of the Southwest are features of the evening
performances so eagerly anticipated by both spectators
and participants of the Pow-Wow.
One of the most thrilling of them all is the Apache
Crown Dance, or as many call it- the Devil Dance.
There is an excitement in, the way the dancing fig­ures
come leaping into the firelight from the darkness,
their bodies black painted, their costumes barbaric,
their headdresses fantastic.
These high headdresses are strangely shaped, some
of them having a horned or antlered appearance, others
looking somewhat like great vividly painted fans.
As the dancers leap and stamp and gyrate, always
in perfect rhythm with the beating drums, there is an
accompanying jingle of little bells, a rattle of beads
and belts.
These are the good forces, unafraid of evil. In a
circle, sedately separate, apparently unaware of them,
the girl dancers move in their rhythmic shuffle, around
and around.
The evil one comes in, seeking someone whom he
may destroy. He wears a headdress with a cross on it
and to one of his legs a cowbell is strapped.
He attempts to put to rout the good forces but they
with their swords, put him to rout instead.
The Crown Dance is also sometimes called the Cliff
Dwellers' Dance.
One of the most interesting of the evening dances
will be the Eagle Dance, during which the movements
of the dancers, even more than their eagle-winged,
eagle-beaked costumes, will carryover to the white spec­tator
the Indians' idea of freedom, fierce proudness and
aloofness.
Fluttering the feathered wings which are attached
to their outstretched arms, pretending in their posturing
and measured bending and turning to be wheeling
and gliding in free flight, the dancers symbolize the
air and the clean free breath of air.
The Butterfly Dance is one of the most delicate
and colorful, the dancing maidens wearing their hair
in the traditional Hopi "butterfly" swirl over both
ears to indicate that they are of marriageable age, and
carrying the symbol of the rainbow in their hands.
The skilled Hopi, Laguna and Taos hoop dancers
are always favorites of the audiences. The rapid beat
of the drum, the precise, knowing movements of their
feet as they tilt the hoops and start them on their in­credible
course, is guaranteed to hold anyone's rapt at­tention.
And usually the hoop dancers are among the
most beautifully costumed of the dancers, skimpy though
that costume is.
The Horse Tail Dance is amusing, though it was
originally a war dance; and there is nothing to stir the
blood and set one to thinking of old days and red men
on the war path like the fast Cheyenne War Dance,
when it seems almost as though the dancers them­selves
might be living again those long past days of the
prairie raids.
And there is the Squaw Dance during which the
dancers pull spectators into the circle and make ~h~m
pay to leave; the clowing Mud Heads in their pink
earth paint and other-worldly masks, looking like visit~-
8
tions from another world; the repetitive, vital Navajo
Yei-bei-chei, tops for vigorous action and tmthusiastic
presentation.
Continued on Page 40
Youthful exuberance is expressed by this young dancer, leap­ing
into the air during the ritualistic movements of the dance.
The dancers are trained from early childhood, and take pride
in their precision, giving attention to the intricate steps taught
them by the older men of the tribe.
The feather bustle is shown above in all its brilliance of brightly-dyed feathers and ornamental center. Bustles have replaced, to
some extent, the equally spectacular war bonnet, once so commonly worn. This bustle is worn by a Taos Indian.
9
One of the most interesting dances to be seen at the Pow-Wow is the Apache Devil Dance) or as it is sometimes called) the Crown
Dance. The high headdre"Sses and the symbolic swords. used to fight off the forces of evil) plus the black masks and strange p~int­ings
on the bodie of the dancers) combine to present a picture of grace and savagery.
10
Hopi Heroine Lives On As Kachina
H e-e-e, the Hopi maiden, now immortalized as a Kachina be­cause
of her bravery centuries ago when enemies were about
to overthrow the warriors 0/ her pueblo, is pictured with her
bow in hand, one side of her hair partly dressed in the great
round swirl which is formed on a bent twig.
I NTRO,DUCTION-
(Continued from Page 6)
wear used now only for ceremonial purposes. They
bring the turtle shell rattles and the deer-hoof rattles,
and each wears his "pah-ho"- the blessed breath feath­er
taken from a ceremonially-killed eagle.
After the flash and color of parades and rodeos in
the daytime, comes the unforgettable experience of the
evening performances.
Centuries ago the Hopi, already living "the Hopi
Way" in their sky-reaching pueblos, looked toward the
San Francisco Peaks with reverence. The Peaks, ac­cording
to Hopi folklore, are where the sacred people
live, the Kachinas, their teachers in all things good.
Here to the slopes of the mountains they come reverent­ly,
for in a sense this is their Holy Land.
The Navajo, who call themselves "Dineh"-the peo­ple-
also look at the Peaks with reverence, for these
peaks represent one of the four corners of the Navajo
11
A girl named He-e-e, about whom very little is
known except that she excelled in bravery, was long
ago immortalized by the Hopi people as a Kachina.
Now, each year, He-e-e is seen in the Kachina dances
of the Hopis, wearing her traditional mask and costume,
one side of her long and shining hair partially done up
in the great circular adornment that is a mark of the
unmarried Hopi maiden; the other side, smoothly comb­ed,
hanging loose over her shoulder; black war paint
on her face.
According to Hopi legend He-e-e was sitting in
front of her mother, having her luxurious hair done up,
when a band of hostile Indians attacked her village.
One side of her hair was spread over the U -shaped
willow wand, used to shape the whorl, when the alarm
came.
Presumably, she and her mother made a dash for
safety, forgetting personal beauty in their concern for
their lives and the lives of their neighbors, <,tnd the girl,
seeing how many of the men of the village were being
killed, hastily smeared her young face with war paint,
seized bow and arrows and joined the men in battle.
So gallantly did she fight that the disorganized
villagers rallied, made a more determined effort to rout
the enemy and emerged victorious to laud the heroine,
He-e-e.
Kachina dolls, representing He-e-e, show her with
her bow and arrows, face blackened, one side of her
hair loose over her shoulder, the other partly caught on
the willow stick.
Like other heroines-Joan of Arc, for instance--she
lives on in the memory of her people. In this case, as
a Kachina.
world, as established early in their residence in the
Southwest.
Before the Navajo came, and even before the Hopi
arrived, there were Indians living on this high plateau,
dominated by· the lofty San Francisco Peaks. There
were Indians here before the eruption of Sunset Crater
about 1066. Ruins of their dwellings are found by the
hundreds and pit dwellings, covered by the lava which
flowed from Sunset, have been uncovered and recon­structed.
Perhaps, yes, undoubtedly, even then they danced
their ceremonial dances in their plazas. Perhaps they
too used the drum as an accompaniment. Rattles must
have been employed, too, to set the pace of the dance.
The Indians of today carry out the customs of their
ancestors in the evening performances.
When the great stacked bonfires are set ablaze, and
their leaping, dancing flames cast a ruddy glow on the
space before the grandstand, the Indians lose them­Continued
on Page 40
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12
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,
Hopi weaving, done by men of the tribe, is in demand by other tribes of the Southwest because of its excellence. The girls, their
hai~-do signifying that they are of marriageable age, wear hand-woven shoulder blankets and carry in their hands evergreens, symb(>l
of /tfe everlasting. The men wear the firm, hand--woven ceremonial sashes. Ii
13
Want to buy a genuine Navajo rug? In all their colorful variety they are on display during the Pow-Wow, the Navajo women
bringing them in from the reservation to drape them carelessly over a length of rope for viewing.
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14
Stairways Of
With the completion of Glen Canyon dam, rising
waters of the Colorado will hide forever the ancient
stairways of the Indians who once popula.ted Glen
Canyon and its side canyons.
These "Moki Steps," laboriously pecked into the
rock walls of the canyons, enabled the canyon farmers
to climb the sometimes almost perpendicular sandstone
cliffs that border the Colorado. High up, in some con­venient
cave, or on some supporting ledge, they built
the small rock houses to which the steps lead.
Nearby, in crevices in the cliff face, or against a
smooth backwall, they rocked up little granaries for
their harvests. On the cliffs they pecked petroglyphs
that tell a story present day people cannot read.
Corn was their principal crop, according to the
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The Old Ones
15
evidence of corn cobs in the litter of their homes. And
the corn was not small and starved, but grew on large
cobs, well watered by the waters coursing down the
little side canyons.
Glen Canyon got its name from the many pleasant
glens along it, and this was the logical place for a peo­.
pIe to establish themselves. Close to water, with fertile
soil for their gardens, and with deer for meat, they
spent their span of time and now are lost.
Artifacts tell of their hunting and the uses they
made of the game, meat, skin, hooves, hides and bones,
but who they were, how they happened to choose Glen
Canyon as their homeland, where they went, why, and
when, is lost in the haze of the years, as the steps they
pecked will soon be erased by lapping waters and their
abrasive burden of sand.
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Corn: Gift From The Indians
Among the many gifts the white man has received
from the American Indian, corn is one of the most im­portant.
Tobacco, squash, some types of cotton, adobe con­struction,
many crafts, are traceable to the Indian, but
of them all corn is one of the most valuable contribu­tions
our brother, the Redman, has made to our way
of life.
When we speak lightly of something being a "long,
hard grind," we should consider the life of the average
Indian woman who, until ' just recently, had the daily
task of grinding corn for the use of her family. Even
now, with cornmeal available at the stores, many In­dians
prefer the taste of their; own, home ground meal.
Both Hopi and Navajo Indians rely to a great ex­tent
on corn for their daily food. And with them, as
with the Mexican Indians, the process of making the
corn ready for use is the same.
The shelled corn is placed on a stone, another stone
is used to reduce it to meal. It is a slow and back­breaking
task.
The Mexicans call their grinding stone a metate.
Their hand stone is called a mano. The Hopi, using
a similar stone, call it the mata and the hand stone is a
mata-ke. 'The Navajo people are not too particular
about the stones they use. Stones are heavy and the
Navajo, a nomadic people, cannot carry them with
them, therefore quite often they use any flat stone that
is at hand and employ a suitable small stone for the
grinding.
The buffalo was to the Plains dwelling Indian what
corn is to the "Peaceful Ones" - the Hopi, and to the
Navajo. The Sioux, the Crow, the Cheyenne and the
Blackfeet- all looked to the buffalo for food, for tepee
coverings, for robes and bedding, and many o~~er uses.
When the ancestors of the present Hopi ' people
came to Arizona from the South they brought with
them corn for planting in their new homeland. The
white man, making a trip through the reservation and
seeing the arid sandy sweeps of desert land is amazed
at the sight of the Hopi gardens.
Those tiny plots of land, so painstakingly cared for,
mean much to the people of the pueblo dwellings on
the lofty mesas, for the Hopi is steeped in belief in
his way of life. He is devoted to his own peculiar but
proven methods of farming. He places faith in hIs
knowledge of the moods of the Arizona mesalands where
16
his ancestors lived for so many years.
Above all, he has faith in the efficacy of his great
prayer 'for rain- the Snake Dance. . .
One of the many units of the HopI people IS the
Corn Clan. Cornmeal, as well as corn pollen, is used
now and has been used for centuries past in the cere-monials
of the Hopi. .
No wonder the plant itself is revered by the dem­zens
of HopilaI)d. It is planted with ritual, and by
means of the planting stick. This stick, made of a
length of tough wood, possibly greasewood from the
desert land nearby, is whittled down to a chisel edge at
one end and carefully smoothed for the hand of the
planter. .
At planting time this stick is thrust down mto th.e
wind-dried sun-hardened earth to a depth where preCI­ous
moisture lurks. Into this hole the kernels of corn
are dropped-"four for the gopher, four for the crow,
four for the cutworm and four to grow." The bred-up
strength in the seed will sustain the little new pl.ant
while it makes the journey upward toward the sunshme,
anchoring its root deeply to withstand the buffeting
of the wind. "
Water for the crops- that is the eternal problem of
the Hopi and ' Navajo farmers. Unless there is water
available from some nearby spring or some small stream,
rain is vital. And rains in this area are unpredictable.
Beautiful clouds pile up and up, lightning flashes and
thunder reverberates, but the rain that falls may miss
the thirsty gardens and waste itself in the desert. .
Then is the time when the Hopi farmer watches
his young green corn shriveling, shrinking, the tender
leaves curling. It takes faith to believe that a miracle
will take place and the crop will be saved. But he
is used to miracles. Again and again he has seen the
saving rain sluice down at the close of the Snake Dance.
This sacred ceremony of the Hopi is held in early
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In front of their summer shelter this Indian woman and her small daughter busy themselves with the corn harvest. The big
ears are carefully husked, and shelled for grinding into the meal which forms a large part of the Navajo diet.
August, at a time designated by priests of the Snake
and Antelope clans.
There comes a day when the feathered standard
flies from the tip of the ladder which leads down into
one of the kivas; nine days from that day the actual
"dancing" of the snakes will take place.
Many people, hearing about the dance, experience
revulsion at the thought of snakes being handled by the
dancers and held in their mouths. The best cure for
that feeling is to witness one of the dances, when that
phase of the ceremonial is forgotten in the interest the
rest of it creates.
When the stranger learns that the Hopi regard the
snakes as messengers to the underworld gods and that
~n effect they are dancing the snakes, doing them honor
m order that they may report this honor to the under­world
forces, the dance becomes more understandable.
Again, on the day of the dance, the plazas echo the
17
sound of stamping moccasined feet. Old chants issue
from the throats of the singers and the way of the
white man is forgotten in this reenactment of the old
way of life.
Cornmeal for this rite is ground from a crop which
has been ceremonially planted and tended. With it
the snakes are sprinkled after they have been bathed
in the kiva. With it the dancers are blessed and into
a circle made of cornmeal the snakes are tossed after
they have been "danced."
One of the big thrills of the Snake Dance is to see
the runners snatch up an armful of the writhing ser­pents
and dash off with them at the conclusion of the
dance, to distribute them in the four directions that
they may speed away with their messages.
Few spectators would knowingly block the pathway
of one of these carriers.
Old legends -of the Hopi tell how they made their
Continued on Page 20
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INDIAN CEREMONIAL i the World
AUGUST
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Parades - Rodeo - Dances
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On his way off, as his bronc slips and falls, this Navajo rider probably mounted again as the horse scrambled to its feet. Navajo
boys and girls begin riding almost as soon as they begin walking and are at ease in the saddle.
19
CORN -
Continued from Page 17
altars of sand and framed them with ears of corn, blue
for the west, white for the east, yellow for the north
and red for the south. Each of these colors will be
reproduced in the Hopi corn harvest, and there will
be other colors as well, and variegations galore. Some
of the ears have kernels of such a dark blue as to seem
black. Many of the red ears are as dark as dried
blood.
For each of the colors there is piki meal for the
marriage bread of the Hopi. Though piki is eaten at
other times, it is during the engagement and marriage
rituals that the tissue-thin bread is traditionally used.
Each traditional Hopi home has its piki stone- an ob­long,
worked and treated slab which has been carefully
tempered with slow firing for its long useage.
The piki meal is very finely ground into flour-like
texture, then mixed with water and made into a thin
gruel. With a bowl of this tinted paste beside her the
Hopi cook sits in front of her hot piki stone and with a
deft swipe of her hand spreads the mixture over the
stone.
The translucent sheet is almost instantly cooked
through and the cook lifts it from the stone, folding it
as she does so into an oblong which soon hardens and
cools to be stacked, criss-cross, on a plaque of woven
yucca fibers.
Piki has a pleasant taste, though sometimes there is
a slight grittiness about it that bespeaks stone dust mix­ed
with the ground meal. But it is said to contain a
great deal of nourishment, and is highly regarded by
I ndians making a trip afoot across the desert, since it
is so light and will keep indefinitely.
Indians waste no part of the corn crop. The ears
are stored in Hopi granaries; cornhusks are used for
many purposes, the coarse ones and the stalks are eaten
by the shaggy burros that are so much in evidence in
every Hopi village; corn feasts of new corn ' are held
each year, and there are dozens of ways in which the
corn and the cornmeal is cooked, including the Hopi
hominy which is made after the old manner by placing
the cooked kernels in a lye made from wood ashes un­til
the tough outer coating is softened and can be float­ed
free of the tender inside portion.
Just below the village of Mishongnovi on Second
Mesa, rises a legendary shrine of the Hopi called the
Corn Rocks because of its resemblance to two ears of
corn standing upright and turned to stone.
I t is a fitting symbol. What better one could be
found for people who are said to be the most successful
dry farmers and corn growers on earth?
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20
Bright-eyed Navajo Indian babies seem to love their cradle
boards. Securely fastened against the padded board they are
placed against the hogan wall or against a wagon wheel, and
from that vantage point observe their mothers and other
relatives.
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Hopi Craftsman Exhibition
The twenty-fourth annual Hopi Craftsman Exhibi­tion
will be held on July 4, 5, 6, and 7, 1957, at the
11useum of Northern Arizona, located three miles north
of Flagstaff on the Fort Valley Road. The Museum
is open to the public free of charge from 9 A.M. to 6
P.M. daily during the exhibition.
Thirty years ago many of the Hopi living in their
picturesque villages on the tops of three mesas some 125
miles northeast of Flagstaff were excellent craftsmen,
weaving cloth of cotton and wool, making baskets, pot­tery,
silver, kachina dolls, and many other items. Little
by little as travel became easier and as more things
could be found in stores, calico began to replace hand­made
material, tin pans to replace baskets and pottery,
and linoleum to replace handwoven rugs. Only the
hand-carved kachinas continued to be made, as they
had been, for they could not be duplicated. The good
. material still being made by the Hopi had few outlets
for its sale. Only pottery of inferior quality could be
found in the curio stores.
Since 1930 the Museum of Northern Arizona has
held twenty-three Hopi Craftsman Exhibitions, organ­ized
for the purpose of encouraging the Hopi to pro­duce
their traditional arts and crafts. Through the
years this purpose has been fulfilled and the exhibition
has become famous. It is a unique demonstration of
Hopi arts and crafts.
More than one thousand different items of Hopi
handicraft were displayed and a majority of them sold
during the 1956 exhibition. Hand-made baskets with
colorful designs; both unpainted and decorated pottery
pieces similar to those made by the ancestors of the
Hopi 400 years ago when the earliest Spanish explorers
first visited their pueblo villages; hand-carved and
painted kachina dolls such as are still used in Hopi cere­monials;
hand-made textiles of cotton or wool, finely
but simply woven, many of which are beautifully em­broidered;
silver jewelry decorated with traditional
Hopi designs that stem from prehistoric and historic
Hopi art originally adapted to jewelry by the Museum's
staff artist nearly twenty years ago; all of these plus
various other objects are on display at the Hopi Crafts­man
Exhibition.
Each year members of the Museum staff make sev­eral
trips to the Hopi Reservation to collect the many
items. The Hopi know that the Museum selects the
finest work offered by each person, and thus all are
encouraged to offer only their best. There is an addi­tional
incentive in the prizes and ribbons that are
awarded each year after the 75 classes are judged by
authorities on Hopi craftsmanship.
The visitor is thus assured that here can be found
examples of all the traditional Hopi crafts and that
the individual articles on display are the best available
anywhere in America.
One small section of the extensive Hopi Craftsman Ex hibition which will be on display all during the South­west
All-Indian Pow-Wow is pictured above. Hopi pottery, woven plaques, ceremonial sashes, blankets, silver
jewelry, hand carved Kachina dolls, and many othe r items will be on display.
21
Two talented Hopi craftsmen are on the Museum
staff. Mr. Jim Kewanwytewa of Oraibi, world-famous
carver of kachinas, will be found at the kachina dis­play
during the exhibition. From him the visitor can
learn the name and history of the rna ny colorful ka­china
dolls to be seen. His wife, Agnes Kewanwytewa,
from Shungopovi, Second Mesa, has won many prizes
for her basketry. These are the famous coiled baskets
made on Second Me a.
:Mr. Willie Coin from Bakabi is kept busy during the
year making silver jewelry to order. He follows the
tradition of the modern Hopi silversmiths in that his
pieces are decorated with Hopi designs but each piece
differs from the others in detail.
Mr. Fred Kabotie, an Associate of the Museum and
head of the Hopi Silvercraft Guild, is usually to be
found throughout the exhibition in the room in which
the silver is displayed. Much 0f the excellent reputa­tion
of Hopi silver is due to his encouragerr.~{lt and
teaching. Mr. Kabotie is one of the best known Hopi
painters, and hi paintings are found in many museum
collections.
Throughout the exhibition Hopi women are at work
in the patio of the Museum, one making pottery, others
weaving baskets, and one cooking the traditional bread
of the Hopi, called piki bread. Two men are seated
before their looms, one weaving a rug and the other
weaving belts, and in the special exhibit room the Hopi
silversmith is busily making silver. All of the articles
that are made are for sale, and one can have the
pleasure of ordering an article and then watching its
construction under the deft hands of the Hopi artisans.
Thus not only can one find the finest of Hopi material
but one can also see it being made.
The 1v1useum staff members, the Hopi craftsmen
who contribute the various articles for display and sale,
and the Hopi demonstrators on hand during this exhi­bition
do their best to make sure that the visitor en­joys
a worthwhile and unique experience when he at­tends
the Hopi Craftsman Exhibition- an experience
that he will long remember and treasure.
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22
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Gateway To
Some of the most beautiful reminders of an ancient
culture are located in Northern Arizona, among them
Casa Blanca ruins, over in the Four Corners Country.
A huge apartment house of the Indians who once
lived in Canyon de Chelly, it has retained its white­washed
appearance because it is tucked away in a tre­mendous
cave, and thus protected from weathering to
some extent.
The thrill of discovery is experienced by the visitor
who searches for it from the 1000-foot-high opposite
canyon wall, and is amazed to find it dwarfed to toy
size by distance and in comparison with its great, over­hanging
red sandstone wall.
But Flagstaff may well be called the gateway to en­chantment,
for in this area alone, within easy traveling
distance of any who attend the Pow-Wow, are spectacu­lar
Montezuma Castle in the Verde River area; Tuzi­goot
on its hilltop near Clarkdale; Walnut Canyon Na­tional
Monument only a few miles east of Flagstaff, and
Sunset Crater and Wupatki National Monuments to
the north.
To reach Wupatki ruins and the many other ruins
in the same area- Lomaki, Wukoki, the Citadel ruins,
to mention a few-one drives through part of one of
the greatest volcanic fields in the country. It is a part
of the San Francisco Peaks system and dates from the
Pliocene era to about 1066, when Sunset Crater erupted.
The entire area involves about 3000 square miles.
About 200 cinder cones, black and deep purplish red,
give the horizon an undulating appearance, and gashes
in the side of some of them show where they are being
Enchantment
"mined" and hauled away, ton by ton, to be used in
almost their pristine condition for road surfacing. There
are dozens of great lava flows, now covered with sparse
growth, but recognizable as lava flows to those who take
time to trace them toward their source.
According to students of vulcanology, there have
been many volcanic outbursts in this area, some of
them of exceeding violence.
A great black cinder hill forms a backdrop for the
ruins of Wupatki. Built on a knoll, as many of the
ruins are for very practical purposes of defense, ap­parently,
Wupatki's old rock walls show tne skill of the
ancient builders and their common-sense use of the
materials at hand.
Aside from the ruin itself, there is a circular court
on a level spot below where, it is supposed, the Indians
indulged in games or ceremonial observances, with
spectators sitting on the rock walls.
Many people visit Wupatki yearly, but do not take
time to travel across the cinder-strewn flat to the sand­stone
butte on which sits the rosy ruin of Wukoki. And
few take the dirt road that leads to Lomaki's crumb­ling
rock homes. Yet, away from the traveled road, one
is apt to experience a deeper understanding of the van­ished
ones who once lived in these little fortress homes
they built with their own hands.
Travel south, down through Oak Creek Canyon
with its rainbow-hued cliffs and buttes, through the
pretty little town of Sedona, past the arresting Chapel
of the Holy Cross and the towering Bell Rock, to Bea-
This is the ancient fortress city of Tuzigoot, partly restored by the National Park Service. It crowns a rocky hill which overlooks
a big bend of the Verde River near Clarkdale, Arizona, and is easily accessible to the public. The life of the Indians who once
lived in the fortress and farmed the bottomlands is graphically suggested by exhibits in the Tuzigoot Museum.
31
Lomaki, ((Beautiful House," is one of the ruins in the Wupatki National Monument off U. S. Highway 89, and within a short dis­tance
of Flagstaff to the north. The many ruins, many of them now only piles of rubble, testify to the large population of
that area in the distant past.
ver Creek and the best preserved and probably most
picturesque or all the ruins of Arizona- Montezuma
Castle.
Since there were no Spaniards in this area at the
time of Montezuma Castle's building about 1000 years
ago, the name is not appropriate. What is was called
by those who built it so laboriously in a great cave in
a great white limestone cliff, no one knows, and the
modern name does have a certain magnificence about
it that matches the magnificence of the "castle."
Tuzigoot, another fortress city, after the manner of
the Citadel and vVupatki built on a knoll, is built close
to the waters of the meandering Verde river. The
view from its highest rooftop is inspiring, leading the
gaze out over river bottoms that were no doubt once
used by the Tuzigoot dwellers for their fields and gar­den
plots. The museum building is in harmonious
keeping with the ruin and contains an educational dis­play
which adds greatly to the pleasure of the visit to
this spot.
One of the most interesting features of a visit to
Walnut Canyon National Monument is the unusually
large variety of plants and trees, which range from cold
country growth on the shaded side of the canyon walls
to tropical on the areas exposed to the hot sunshine.
Below the Museum and administration building the
canyon is contorted into a great horseshoe bend in
which is the "Island" readily reached by means of a sad­dle
of land.
The path leads completely around this projection
of land, giving many fascinating views of the deep and
rocky canyon, as well as bringing the visitor within per­sonal-
inspection distance of several of the 400 or more
cliff dwellings that dot the canyon walls.
The best of the restored cliff dwellings still show
the smoke blackened walls erected by the ancient Sina­gua
people who lived along the canyon while farming
the fertile fields of the flats above them, and there are
cliff overhangs, not rocked up into rooms, that are
thought to have been used for communal gatherings,
much as a park might be set aside now.
The smoke holes over the doorways, the T -shaped
doors and the shiny look of the sooty walls, said to have
resulted from the burning of pitch knots, are some of
the features of interest.
Another ruin of the ancient people, unmarked on
most maps and unrestored for public viewing, is Homo­lovi,
north of 'Vinslow.
TH'E 'BANK O'F ARIZONA
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PRESCOTT - FLAGSTAFF - CLARKDALE - COTTONWOOD - WILLIAMS - SEDONA
32 )
Acknowledgments
Paintings in color by Indian
artists lend distinction to this issue
of the annual Pow-Wow Maga­zine.
They were made available
through the courtesy of Raymond
Carlson, famed e'ditor of Arizona
Highways Magazine. The pic­tures
are the work of artists Andy
T sihnahjinnie, Keetsie Shirley, B.
Yazz, Ed Lee Natay, Stanley Ba­tisse,
Quincy Tahoma, Gerald Nay­lor,
and Harrison Begay.
The fine black and pictures,
with but a few exceptions, are the
work of Ray Manley, official Pow­Wow
photographer. Pictures ac­companying
the Park Service arti­cle
in this issue are official NPS
photos.
T he Northern Arizona Society
of Science and Art, Inc. provided
the illustration for the article on
the Hopi Craftsman Exhibition, as
well as that of the Kachina hero­ine.
Miss Katherine Beard of the
Flagstaff Mission to the Navajos
made possible the use of the pic­ture
of the Navajo women husk­ing
corn.
At the night show, no flash pic­tures
are permitted, because it
would ruin the effect which the
Pow-''''ow management goes to
such pains to create. After the
show is over, you can make your
own arrangements with Indian
performers to pose. It's wise to
ask these people for permission to
take their pictures anytime except,
perhaps, during the parade. Would
you want your picture taken by
some stranger who failed to secure
your permission? Our Indian visi­tors
feel about this just as you do.
All the natural recklessness of the Navajo youth comes out in rodeo competttton. Whetiher
it is bronc riding, calf roping, bulldogging or steer riding, the Navajo rodeo entrant has a
wonderful time trying for first money. Only Indians are allowed to compete in this All-
Indian Rodeo. .
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33
Sun Dance Of The Plains Indians
FOREVvORD
The Wind River Reservation in Fremont Co.,
Wyo., listed on some maps as the Shoshone Indian
Reservation, is one of the few places in the world
where the age-old ritual of the Sun Dance is still
performed.
Only in comparatively recent years have white
spectators been welcome at these rites, once observ­ed
by many of the Plains Indians. It is probable,
even now, that there is no white person who knows
all about the Sun Dance, due to the characteristic
reticence of the Indians and the persistent secrecy
which has always enveloped the ceremonial.
The knowledge gleaned has resulted from long
years of patient inquiry; days and nights at the
dance place. years in succession. We have asked
countless questions and read all we could find on
the subject before this summing up.
To our numerous Indian friends we owe a debt
of gratitude for their unfailing courtesy to us and
their efforts to help us gain a true conception of
the depth of meaning in each phase of the dance.
The followin!{ account is reprinted from aWe
Saw the Sun Dance ~~ by Vada F. Carlson and
Sheila Hart.
Toom-tum .. .. toom-tum .. .. toom-tum ....
Simultaneously startled, we two whi.te women awoke
and lay listening to the accented throbbing of a distant
drum.
Moonlight was white on the canvas of our little tent,
pitched under the cottonwoods near the Mission, and
the cottonwood leaves made shadowed splashes of black
above us. No breeze swept down from the high crags
of the Wind River rang-e of mountains beyond us;
sound carried far in the chilly stillness.
For a time there was only the throb of the drum,
then another sound intruded. A wag-on was approach­ing.
A rumbling lumber wagon. There was the clop­clop
of horses' hooves and the jingle of harness as it ap­proached,
and suddenly one of its unseen occupants,
sitting flat on the wagon bed perhaps, moonlight on
her dark face, began to chant in time to the beat of the
drum.
"Ai-i-hai-hai-ai-ai-hai-hai-"
A burst of derisive laughter and a flow of jesting
gutterals interrupted the song which, we learned, was
one of the wordless but meaning-packed chants of the
Sun Dance, that primitive religious ceremonial of the
Plains Indians which we had come to the Wind River
Reservation to observe.
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34
The wheels rolled on, past our little camp, heading
toward the sound of the drum to become a part of the
Indian encampment which would cluster around the
dance place. Somewhere a horse neighed, a thi.n, lone­ly
sound in the white night, and back in the nm rock
a coyote set up an eerie wail.
We tried to get back to sleep, but it was difficult.
Other wheels were rolling in the moonlight now. Oth­er
drums joined the first. Other voices- low, myster­ious
voices and high, hysterical ones- rehearsed the Sun
Dance chants in the distance and the night seemed alive
and pulsing. "Ve sensed the inner excitement of the
Indian families who were riding through the lovely
night to reach the dance place, and it stirred us, too.
Yet, when dawn came and flickers set up their chat­ter
in the cottonwoods, we were too eager to feel tired.
Hurriedly, shivering in the sharp mornin~ air, we dress­ed
and went out to wash in the icy water of the irri­gation
ditch. The small fire over which we prepared a
quick breakfast was not enough to completely warm us,
but soon we were on our way, affot, across the flat to
the spot where already the encampment was springing
up.
All along the creek, tents were being pitched. Each
road and trail was like a spoke of some gigantic wheel
whose hub was the dance place. Dust from the ap­proaching
wagons and autos rose in dun veils and hung
in the still, crisp air. The mushrooming encampment,
even at that early hour, teemed with activity.
Breakfasts were being prepared and the fragrance
of coffee and fried bread vied with the scent of sweet
clover and sage. Beside the tents girls combed their
shining long black hair and made UP their dark faces
with rouge and lipstick. Small children peeped at us
from tent flaps, or hid behind their mothers' skirts,
their eyes bright and questioning.
At one tent a cow was being milked. There was a
rheumy-eyed nanny goat tethered at another camp.
Saddle horses and teams were tied to the wagons, and
out away from the encampment a short distance an old
Indian woman herded half a dozen long-necked little
turkeys who yeeped to each other companionably as
they gobbled up a breakfast of chilled grasshoppers.
We had missed the sham battle the day before. The
long cavalcade of wagons and gaily-garbed riders was
already coming down the canyon when we arrived. We
had watched them pass, wagon after wagon, piled with
trees for the dance place, escorted by solemn-visaged
riders. The sacred center pole rode in state, alone on
the lead wagon.
We had joined in at the rear of the procession and
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35
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36
followed them past the old Wind River Indian ceme­tery
where SaGajawea, the Bird Woman of Lewis and
Clark fame, is buried, and across the little creek to the
shallow depression where those who had "put up" the
dance had marked the future site of the center pole
with a little wickiup of willows.
As the wagons stopped at the edge of the depression
and the teams were unhitched and led away, an old
woman emerged from a lone tent at the south side of
the chosen spot and waddled toward the dance place.
The wind was blowing. It tugged at her white braids,
flapped her pink calico skirts about her blue leg­gings
and lifted the fringe of her bright green shawl,
but she paid no heed to it. She set up a shrill chant
which she continued until the trees were unloaded from
the wagons.
Men had unloaded the heavy stringers, the center
pole and the poles which were to form the dance place
circle, but younger women cheerfully helped with the
smaller trees and the brush, and afterward the crowd
dispersed, many of them to form gambling groups in the
shade of the willows along the creek.
We had come early this following morning to watch
the erection of the dance place, but we might have
taken our time, for there was nothing hurried about the
actions of the men who soon gathered at the depres ion.
Not one step was taken without the ancient ritual of
prayer. We sat down on a peeled spruce pole and
watched. They ignored us. We were white people­"
tybos" - strangers.
We felt more at ease when our Shoshone friend
joined us.
The men removed the willow shelter and dug the
hole for the center pole. Then, painstakingly they
measured the long stringer poles and set the 12 outer
poles which would form the circular enclosure.
During this time other men were, as our Shoshone
friend said, "preparing the head." In the days of the
Far Back Fathers a brave went out and killed a buffalo
and brought the fresh head to the dance place for the
ceremony. Now, one must resort to second best. One
must take an old buffalo skull and stretch over it the
fresh hide of a cow creature. One may put on new
horns, too, that have been polished for the occasion,
so our friend informed us.
(Now, the Shoshone Indians have a real buffalo
head, mounted for permanent use and presented to
them by a former Reservation official) .
We went a little closer to watch the men fasten the
head to the center pole, just below the fork, and secure
a bunch of fresh willows in the crotch of the tree.
"When they raise the pole," our friend told us, "the
buffalo will face west. The willows will point south
and north ... Now they are putting the sweet sage in
the nose."
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,
"Why?" we asked.
"Oh," she said, "that is a symbol . Breath. Like
breathing." She talked with her hands to make her
words clearer. "On a cold day you can see the breath
coming from the nostrils-you understand ?- like gray
clouds."
The Sun Dance seems to be all symbols. The buf­falo
head is a symbol of plenty, as the buffalo was once
the basis of existence for the Plains Indians. The flesh
provided food. The skin was useful for covering the
lodges; buffalo robes were used for beds; moccasins and
many other articles were made from the tanned skins.
Hence, the buffalo represented strength, comfort and
supply.
Pungent, feathery sweet sage is a symbol of healing
as well as representative of breathing. Willows, which
grow along the water's edge, are symbols of verdue and
water, essentials of life.
When the head and the willows were placed, a long
slender stringer was prepared. To its tip the body of
an eagle was lashed. The eagle, we were told, repre­sents
freedom. I t flies in the clean blue sky where there
is no illness and no restraints. This stringer would rest
in the fork of the center pole later on, and its symbol of
freedom would be headed toward the rising sun.
Men were chosen to place the black and white
stripes on the center pole. There are conflicting rea­sons
given for these stripes. Some say they represent
the three days and nights the dance will last. Others
vaguely say they stand for "something good." Still oth­ers
stoutly maintain that the center pole is a symbol of
J esus Christ, Our Brother; that the stripes represent his
crucifixion and resurrection, and that the 12 outer poles
represent the Disciples.
Whatever their true significance, the rite of raising
the center pole was impressive.
Several pairs of tepee poles had been lashed together
with rawhide thongs and men in pairs held them, wait­ing.
Into this expectant group stepped the leader who
had conducted the other prayers. He began the prayer
song and men and women joined in, the men with the
tepee poles bumping them together to make a strange
accompaniment.
When the prayer song was finished, the tepee pole
shears were used to lift the center pole from the ground
and swing it into place, the action being accompanied
by yells and laughter which also seemed to be a part of
the ritual. Four times this prayer-in-action was re­peated
before the pole was set.
After that the work proceeded at a faster pace, and
within a few hours the dance place looked like the
skeleton of a giant umbrella about 80 feet in diameter,
propped up in the flat. Brush was then placed around
the enclosure to provide shade for the dancers, but be­tween
the eastern poles, beneath the eagle's body, a
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38
space was left open. This was the entrance through
which the dancers would "go in" at sunset.
Heat and hun~er drove us away for a time. When
we returned the July sun was dropping slowly toward
the jagged peaks of the Wind River mountains to the
west of the dance place, and an Indian on a dejected
black pony was riding slowly through the encampment
making an announcement of some sort. He sounded for
all the world like a town crier.
"''''hat's this?" we asked our Shoshone friend.
She smiled at us, hiding her mirth behind a lifted
fold of her shawl.
"He's telling the people it is time to begin. He's
telling the dancers to go to the river and get clean."
The people had been waiting for this call. Th~y
responded to the strange staccato syllables, not in words,
but in action. From every tent men and women and
children emerged and drifted toward the dance place.
Their coppery faces were enigmatic. Their black eyes
revealed nothin~. Mothers carried babies on their
backs, caught close beneath their shawls. Tots clung
to their mothers' skirts or fingers. Boys and girls of
teen-age were reverently quiet as they sought places
near the enclosure.
The dancers began gathering to the west of the
dance place. The older men came across the sage and
cacti with the confidence of moccasin-toughened feet,
but the younger men, used to white men's footwear,
walked gingerly. At the west they dropped their blan­kets
and shawls. Adjusted their dance aprons. Hitched
UD their breech clouts or tightened their beaded belts
about the shawls which they were wearing skirt-fashion.
The older men's braids were natural, hanging over their
shoulders in the manner of their forefathers, but many
of the younger men wore false braids, decending from
a head band.
When the time drew near two old men emerged
from a wickiup at the west. One was incredibly ema­ciated,
his lips drawn back over his teeth in a skeletal
sneer. The other was a benevolent, fatherly-looking
oldster, with gray braids falling over his bare brown
shoulders.
"That's the dance leader," our friend whispered.
"He's been fasting. He and the other."
The sun sank lower and lower in a metallic blue­green
summer sky. The dancers clustered together,
fantastic in their vermilion and blue and ochre paints
and their gaudy dance finery. Many of them wore
"medicine" charms about their necks. Charms to help
them endure three days and nights without food or
water.
Cars were coming. White people and Indians were
standing in groups watching the dancers, waiting to
witness the beginning of the ceremonial. U nobtrusive­ly,
the spectators were kept from parking their cars at
the east of the dance place. That space was kept clear.
At the west the dancers formed a long line. The
leader took his place at its head. The procession began
to move, slowly. With bowed heads and measured
tread the dancers marched twice around the enclosure,
then entered, forming in two rows at the west of the
center pole, facing east. They knelt, then, and the
leader-he who had had the vision and put up the
dance-prayed for them. For them and all the people.
Continued on Page 41
Greetings
EL PASO NATURAL
GAS COMPANY
IS PROUD TO
SERVE FLAGSTAFF
HOME OF THE
pow-wow
EL PASO NATURAL 6ASllICOMPANY
39
Office Equipment and Supplies
lOW. Aspen Phone 221
* Fishing Tackle
*Camping Equipment * Guns & Ammunition
* Hobby Supplies
CLARK'S SPORTING GOODS
7 N. Leroux Phone 1110
THE BRANDING IRO'N
Western Clothing for Men, Women
and Children
WESTERN GIFTS
Opposite Santa Fe Depot
Your Friendly Home Furnishing Dealer
HARPER F'URNITURE CO.
Everything For The Home
Sedona Flagstaff
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W. Birch Street
FIRST In Tubeless
THE ARIZONAN
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AWAY FROM TRAIN AND TRAFFIC NOISES
Phone 1300
WEST'E'RN WEAR
FOR THE FAMILY
Swimwear­Moccasins
Flagstaff. Arizona
'1 NTRO,DUCTION-Continued
from Page 11
selves in this reenactment of the past. Lithe bodies dec­orated
with paint and feathers, they twist and bend,
their moccasined feet performing the intricate and fas­cinating
steps of the dance in perfect time to the beat­ing
drums.
The white spectator, no less than the Indian specta­tor,
is caught up in the splendor of it all. There is the
sweet fragrance of the burning juniper and pine; there
are the high voices and the low grunting chants, the
coyote cries of the Navajo Yei-bei-chei dancers; there
is the mountain breeze and the twinkling stars; there
are the stamping feet and the drumbeat that has some­how
seeped into the blood.
No one can watch a three-ringed circus and see
everything that goes on. So it is with the Pow-Wow.
The spectator sees a part of the whole great and un­usual
show, but there are too many things he has missed.
He will have to come again next year, his perceptions
sharpened, his understanding of the beauty and pagean­try
of the Pow-Wow increased.
CEREMONIAL DANCE'S-Continued
from Page 8
The Red Ant Dance, performed by two small boys
and an older man, tells the story of the Navaio pee­ples'
wandering in a land that was always night and
their rescue by the chief of the red ant people. He
helped them part of the way out of their difficulty,
but had to return to the land of night because he wa.s
afraid of the earth and the sky.
The boys, wierdly painted, dance inside hoops which
are adorned with turkey feathers.
Arapahoes are wonderfully expressive dancers, and
their footwork is incomparable, whether in the Buffalo
Dance, VVar Dance or other dances.
Like the Sioux, their · costumes show painstaking
labor and a strict adherence to the colorful past the:.r
dancing exemplifies.
TUCSON-PHOENIX-YUMA-FLAGSTAFF
117 N. Agassiz; Flagstaff Ph. 1855
GIFTS
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Indian Crafts
Phone 627 - 1716 East Santa Fe I Mile East on U.S. 66 - Flagstaff - Harold J. and Billie Quick
.40
SUN DANCE -
Continued from Page 39
T he silence was almost tangible. The world seemed to
have paused in its course to listen. Not a baby whim­pered.
Not a dog barked. Not a soul coughed to mar
that long to be remembered moment. Even the white
visitors were courteously quiet.
The "amen" when he finished, was something to be
experienced rather than described. It would be diffi­cult
to imagine the tapping of dark fingers a~ainst
breasts, the striking of palms against foreheads, the si­bilance
of the breath which was expelled between the
lips of the listeners.
The moment over, the dancers arose and stepped
back to their places in the shelter of the brush walls.
Men came in and took their places about a big, home­made
drum which had been waiting at the eastern sec­tion
of the enclosure. Indian women, the singers, set­tled
themselves on the ground beside the drummers.
The dancers' womenfolk brought great armfuls of green
rushes and willow twigs and aromatic white sage with
which each dancer would make a Spartan pallet.
The sun had gone down. Long shadows flowed
eastward. The afterglow was a vast pastel of lavender
and pink and blue. More and more white people from
the adjacent towns were arriving.
Soon the drum awoke. First there was a long, ex­citing
roll, then that electrifying toom-tum, toom-tum,
which we had heard in the night. The I ndian women
raised their voices in the wierd, minor wordless chant
which is so unmistakeably primitive, so indescribably
sad and haunting, and the dancers began keeping time
with knees and elbows.
Suddenly the emaciated old man hopped toward the
center pole, an eae;le bone whistle, feather-tipped, shrill­ing
between his lips. Other dancers followed, one by
one, until they were all dancing. To the pole and back,
to the pole and back, gaze fixed on the buffalo head.
The old men hopped, their feet close together. The
younger ones took easy, running steps. The brightly­dyed
eagle feathers on their whistles fluttered as they
moved. Sequins on their shawls and dance aprons
flashed .
The Sun Dance had begun!
There is no authentic record of when or where this
ceremonial we have come to call the Sun Dance origin­ated,
or was first practiced. It is peculiar, however, to
the Plains Indians, and lee;endary accounts agree that
many centuries ago, in a time of famine which threat­ened
to destroy a certain tribe, a wise man and his fe­male
companion went up into a high mountain to fast
and meditate. During this 'period the man had a vision
wherein the ritual of the Sun Dance was revealed.
Since the buffalo figures prominently in all Indian
Continued on Page 43
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OMONa .4
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24 South Beaver Phone 324
JUNE FURNITURE CO.
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109 E. Phoenix Phone 493
NORTHERN ARIZONA TITLE CO.
Serv ing Northern A rizona
With Title Insurance
Phone 12 205 N. San Francisco
LONGLEY'S BARBER
AND
BEAUTY SHOP
20 N. Leroux Phone 16
BLE'DSOE'S MEN'S SHO'P
Quality and Style For Men
A spen and Leroux Streets Phone 60
FLO and JACK'S
If You Haven 't Eaten at
the BRA NDING IRO N,
You're Still Hungry.
BRANDING IRON DINING RO'OM
AND COFFEE SHOP
OPEN FROM 6 UNTIL 12 MIDNIGHT
Flagstaff, Arizona West on Highway 66 Near City Limits
PROTECT Our
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ARIZONA
LUMBER AND
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J. C. DOLAN, President
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Flagstaff
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Satisfaction Guaranteed or Your Money Back BEER WINE LIQUORS
15 N. Leroux Phone 56
FLAGSTAFF
J. K. RUFF 2 S. SITGREAVES
FLAGSTAFF TRANSFER AND STORAGE CO.
AUTHORIZED
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42
Continued from Page 41
legends it is not surprising that the Shoshone Indians
claim it was a buffalo which appeared in the vision.
The man, they say, was sitting on a hill, looking
east, when he saw a little black speck approaching with
amazing rapidity. When it came near he saw it was a
buffalo. He was frightened and would have run away,
but the buffalo spoke to him.
"I will not harm you," it said. "I bring you a mes­sage."
The Indian was so astonished he could do nothing
but sit still and listen.
"I have been sent to tell you about a dance," the
buffalo said. "You will call it 'da-g-oo wi-n-de'. It is
a dance in which you do not eat or drink for three days
and three nights. You only worship. You pray for
your people. You pray the sick ones will get well.
You pray that peace and plenty will come to all of
your people."
The vision of the buffalo faded, then, and another
took its place. This was a vision of a brush structure
made' in a circle with a strong forked pole in the center.
There were four men dancing. Later he saw a vision
of the 12 poles which stand for something good, and
the buffalo returned to tell him that everything about
the dance was symbolic.
"Always remember that the Great Power came to
the Shoshone in the form of a buffalo," he told the
man. "The da-g-oo wi-n-de is the blessing he brings
you."
Then he sang the four prayer songs for the man and
left him.
When the man came down from the mountain and
told his people of the vision they believed him and
obeyed his instructions and so the first Sun Dance was
held.
Miraculously, great herds of buffalo appeared and
the tribe was saved from famine.
The story of their deliverance was told and retold
in the story lodges and about the campfires, and soon
all the Plains Indians took up the practice. It became
the most important religious ceremonial known to the
Cheyenne, Arapaho, Shoshone and other Plains tribes.
It had its good features. It brought the tribe to­gether
annually in great villages, where, in addition to
the religious aspect of the occasion, chiefs and leaders
could get together to discuss and form tribal policies.
Social obligations were discharged in the form of feasts.
There were mourning feasts for those who had died
during the year, and the meeting and mating of young
people from widely separated families was facilitated,
and intermarriage prevented.
Also, there must have been a great release from in­ner
tensions, due to the concentration upon one objec-
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Flagstaff, Arizona
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w. R. "BILL" PRESTON
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43
FLAG PHOTO
Acros'S From Sante Fe Depot
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Meet Your Friends At The
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FLAGSTAFF and SEDONA
Phone Flagstaff 849-W
CITY MOTO'R SALES
LINCOLN - MERCURY
H. G. BECKLEY, Manager
Phone 109 402 E. Santa Fe
WEBBER BROS.
Standard Oil Products
3. N. Agassiz Phone 186
ARROWH EAD MOTORS
Complete Mechanical Service
IN THE HEART OF FLAGSTAFF
14 W. Santa Fe
VAN SICKLE and SHUCK
REAL ESTATE - INSURANCE
16 East Birch Phone 127
44
tive and the participation In the songs and rhythmic
activities.
While the ritual was essentially the same in all tribes,
each modified it to some extent. For instance, the Ara­paho
dancer does not move forward to the center pole
and back. He stands in one spot. Shoshone women
take no part in the ceremony, except as singers and
rushbearers, but an Arapaho woman, corresponding
to the female companion of the man who first had the
vision, performs certain offices toward the Sacred Pipe
of the Arapaho, and the Blackfoot Sun Dance is led
by a woman, for women have always held an exalted
place in this tribe.
In some tribes, self torture made of the ancient
ceremony a bloody and horrible spectacle. The man
who could withstand the greatest torture was acclaim­ed
for his bravery.
Rawhide thongs were passed through slits in the
breast or back of the dancer and fastened to the center
pole. Against these thongs the dancer pulled until he
released himself or fell unconscious. If he rested too
long from his exertion, a buffalo robe was thrown over
him and a smudge was built beneath it. He was com­pelled
to continue or smother. Sometimes a buffalo
head was fastened to the thongs and the dancer dragg-ed
this weight about the dance place until his tortured skin
gave way.
The Shoshone Indians claim they have never prac­ticed
any form of torture in connection with the dance.
Nevertheless, it was this feature of the ceremonial
which stirred early missionaries to protest to the govern­ment
about it. Without bothering to search out the
motives and the symbolism of the dance, they bitterly
condemned it, with the result that official opposition
was aroused and the rite forbidden in many tribes.
As the older Indians are gathered to the ranks of
those who walk the Milky Way, the dance will no doubt
gradually become but one more memory of the primi­tive
past.
Originally, the date of the Sun Dance was set by one
who went to the mountain and had a vision as the first
leader had done. Now, though the leader still fasts
and is spiritually moved to give, or as many say-"put
up "- the dance, the date depends on such modern fac­tors
as crop conditions, Agency sanction and celebra­tions
in nearby communities.
Step by step, the dance is still performed according
to long-established ritual. The tents which form the
village are arranged in the shape of a great horseshoe,
open at the east. It is said to be so arranged In
imitation of the Corona Borealis, which the Plains In­dians
know as the Camp Circle of the Gods.
The secret rites of preparation take place in the
lodge west of the dance place. These rites, it is some­what
vaguely claimed, are a rehearsal of the acts per­formed
by the ' originator of the dance. Fasting and
abstinence from water begin here, and once begun, con­tinue
throughout the entire period of the dance.
In nearly all tribes the dancers dance voluntarily.
Various reasons are given for entering. Some enter for
personal healing from some disease, others dance for
a loved one who is ill; one may dance for the good of
the tribe as a whole; in penance for misdemeanors com-
mitted; to induce rain or avert death by lightning or
other disaster; or as a thanksgiving for deliverance from
evil.
Four seems to have been a number of great potency
in times past. F our men took part in the first dance.
The prayer songs are four in number and each is re­peated
four times. I t is said that at one time four
colors were used in painting the body for the ceremonial.
Four times the center pole is lifted in the "ritual of plac­ing
it, and the dance formerly continued four days and
nights.
This numeral is still used by the Arapaho, though
the Shoshone leans toward the numeral three. Four
poles support the Sacred Pipe of the Arapaho in its
place of honor near the center pole, and the four cardi­nal
points are venerated.
Da-g-oo wi-n-de. Da-g-oo wunt. Da-g-oo wun-a­roi.
Those are three spellings of the term which means,
literally, thirsty standing. The word dance is not used
by the older Indians in connection with this ceremonial,
and certainly one must agree that "thirsty standing"
is most fitting for a ceremony which features abstinence
from food and drink for so long a time.
Much of the Sun Dance is prayer-in-action. The
dancers sing the prayer songs through their eagle bone
whistles, although to the listener the result is a series of
piercing sounds. Any part of an eagle is in itself a
prayer for health, because the eagle flies high in the
clean sky. The use of eagle bone whistles and eagle
feathers is a prayer that the earth may also be clean
and free of illness.
Faith, after all, is the dominating note in the ritual.
Unquestioning faith in that omnipotence which rules
our lives- red men and white alike. But this faith is
not in the sun, as many suppose. The dance is not
sun worship. The sun is recognized and addressed
simply as a manifestation of the Great Power. It lights
and warms the earth and makes life possible. The Sun
Dancers face east. They pray to "Our Father," the
Great Power which all men recognize.
The dance had hardly begun that first night before
the younger men were stopping to pull thorns from
their tender feet and remove sharp rocks from the little
paths their feet were making in the depression.
But it was midnight or after, before the medicine
men came to their aid.
Two of these men came into the dance place
with considerable ritual, much fluttering of eagle
wings and showing of good medicine charmc, built
two little fires at the south side of the dance place.
From small buckskin pouches they poured out
what looked and smelled like cedar berries and
pine needles and made a smudge which sent a
little pencil of bule smoke upward. To these
wavering little "smokes" the younger dancers
To A Friendly Bar, The Rood Is Never Long!
came, and while the medicine men blessed them, they
held their blistered and thorn-lacerated feet in the smoke
for healing.
We suddenly realized we were the only white peo­ple
still lingering at the dance place. Most of the In­dians
had retired to their tents. We, too, departed.
For a moment that night we dreamed of dark faces,
firelight, the flash of sequins and the sound of the drum,
then we were awake again and conscious of the fact
that we must hurry if we were to get to the dance place
in time for the sunrise ceremony.
We had no time to eat, but we did make a thermos
bottleful of coffee to take along.
The camp crier was making his morning rounds as
Continued on Page 47
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ARIZONA SAVING:S
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45
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Curios
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Seafood and Steak Dinners
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John an,d Dolly Mills
PREMIUM MOTOR COMPANY
COMPLETE VOLKSWAGEN SERVICE
658 East Santa Fe Ph. 417
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O;pen Evenings
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8 Miles South of Flagstaff
Modern Trailer Park - Lights - Water - Showers
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Dancing Saturday night and Sunday afternoon
Richfield O'il Corp.
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Phone 185 Flagstaff Agent
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Flagstaff. Arizona
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46
Phone 40
B & B Tire Retreading Plant
1
Continued from Page 45
we arrived. Dogs barked at us. A baby wailed at be­ing
disturbed. Someone was chopping wood for the
breakfast fires. A horse nickered a greeting as his mas­ter
stepped through the tent flaps into the dawning.
A few Indians were huddled at the east entrance
as we reached the dance place. The pastel colors in
the east were paling to purest gold and the big bonfire
had burned to smouldering embers. We yawned and
shivered waiting for the sun's rays to warm us.
The dancers, hollow-eyed and wan, had advanced
and were standing in two rows, facing the east, their
half-naked bodies still keeping time to the drum beat,
their eagle bone whistles shrilling those high, wild notes.
Then, abruptly, the singing and the drumming stopped
and there was only the sound of the whistles.
The shrilling increased in volume as the sun's first
rays touched the dark, drawn faces. Straight into the
rising sun the dancers stared. They stretched their
tired arms toward it in gestures profoundly dramatic
and infinitely interesting. The medicine men, murmur­ing
their incantations, held their strongest "medicines"
to the sun's rays, then pressed them to their breasts in
gestures of gratitude.
Until the sun was fully risen, the dancers stood
shrilling their wordless plea for health and all good,
their arms outstretched. Then they seated themselves
about the embers of the fire and joined with their leader
in a series of prayers and chants.
During the rest period which followed, we sat on a
boulder a little distance away and warmed our backs
while we drank our coffee. The singers left the dance
place, walking stiffly away to their tents. The drum-mers
brought the big drum outside and set it on edge
so that the sun might draw the night's dampness from
the drum head, then they, also, left the dance place.
If the fragrance of coffee and fried bread, drifting
to the dance place from the encampment, made the
dancers' empty stomachs clamor for food, they gave no
sign. The younger men clowned a bit with their false
braids. The older ones stolidly combed and braided
their hair, waiting for the paint which woul~ refresh
their bodies before they began the day's dancmg.
11ale relatives attend at this feature of the ritual.
They bring freshly-mixed vegetable paints and set them
before the dancers, who seem to enjoy adorning them­selves,
perhaps receiving an upsurge of vigor from the
cooling mixture.
When they finished painting up for the day, some
of the older men looked like prints of old-time warriors
on the war path. One lad achieved the effect of brilli­ant
blue wings across his high cheekbones. Another
had camouflaged his features with zig-zags of white
and yellow, but for the most part they contented t~em­selves
with conventional dots and circles and stnpes,
applied with innate artistry of Indian people.
When they were adorned, the drummers came. A
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new group for the day's drumming. Fresh singers also
appeared and took their places. The tents spewed In­dians
as the first drum roll sounded. White spectators
were arriving and a sight-seeing bus stirred the powdery
dust, bouncing and jouncing up to the dance place to
discharge its curious tourists.
Rhythm seemed to take control of the dancers. First
they moved their elbows to the beat of the drum, then
they flexed their knees and suddenly, as though they no
longer could resist the impulse, they began dancing.
The eagle feathers on their little fingers fluttered as
they lifted their feather-tipped whistles to their mouths,
threw their heads back, stared up at the buffalo head,
the strong morning sunlight in their faces.
It was that afternoon, when the Wyoming sun was
at its hottest, that the emaciated old dancer had the
"vision." He had been dancing almost continuously,
while the less devout rested on their rush pallets. But
he had been dancing woodenly-like a puppet jerked
by a string. A dried-out, death's head of a puppet,
gray-haired, an orange streak in the part of his hair
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and yellow daubs on his leathery face. But suddenly,
we sensed a change in him.
All eyes were turned to him as he danced to the
center pole and stretched his old arms upward to caress
it with his claw-like fingers.
The drummers made the big drum thunder. The
singers' voices became a frenzy of sound. The people
came running and the reclining dancers staggered to
their feet.
The old one's pantomime was too vivid to be mis­understood.
For him, there was water running down
that sacred center pole. He laved his arms in this
ethereal flow, drew it down over his skinny body. Be­fore
our eyes he seemed to be rejuvenated, standing
straight and proud, his grizzled head high, the eagle
bone whistle between his lips shrieking victory.
The dancers were dancing madly, themselves charg­ed
with emotion and new strength. In the strong sun­light
the violent colors seemed to ebb and flow hyp­notically
and the I ndians' emotion seemed to carry
over, even to the white spectators.
After the vision, medicine men came to the center
pole and the dancers came forward in groups and sing­ly
to be blessed. The vision had been impressive.
"What's it all about?" a puzzled tourist muttered,
turning to a fine-looking older Indian beside him.
The man hesitated before answering.
"I t is like a sacrifice," he said. "They dance for me.
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They dance for you. They dance for all people, every­where."
The tourist looked at the Indian. He looked at us.
He seemed about to make some remark, then he shook
his head and walked away.
Few of the dancers would dare disobey the rules
of the ceremony and eat or drink before the appointed
time, even if some misguided friend or relative slipped
food and drink to him in the darkness.
"To be sick and have people sorry is one thing,"
our Shoshone friend wisely remarked. "But to eat
when your body is full of poison from not eating, and
have everyone know you are sick because you have no
will power, that is something else!"
On the morning of the third day of the ceremonial
the dancers were animated caricatures of themselves.
Their eyes were fixed in their heads from the steady
staring at the buffalo head. Their ribs showed and
their stomachs were gaunt. They spat cotton from
slack mouths and their faces were drawn with weariness.
The night before, their womenfolk had brought them
great bunches of white sage which they had bound on
their heads and stomachs, but the relief was only
momentary.
That third sunrise ceremony was the most impres­sive
of them all. The dancers·' bodies, so unutterably
weary, were living, breathing prayers for good. As they
shivered through the tense moment ' before the sunrise,
one could realize how the faint, reassuring warmth of
the sun's rays would reach into the hungry, worn depths
of those devotees, who had offered themselves that the
ways of the Far Back Fathers might find expression in
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their modern age.
I t was not long in actual time until this moment
passed, then it was time for the great climax of the
fete, the "giving away."
It .was like Christmas and birthdays and surprise
parties combined. Bright sateen skirts, overalls, jewelry,
money, were given to the dancers. One old man ca~e
in with three sticks in his hands and after much SIgn
talk presented them to a very pleased young dancer.
Sticks represent horses, so the young man had been
the recipient of three horses from the old man's corrals.
Throughout the ceremonial the encampment had
been noticeably quiet and orderly. Now, with the end
of the dance in sight, there was a flurry of activity,
good spirits and joviality. There was a ~eriod of quiet
again, however, when the bucket of emetIc-dosed water
was brought into the dance place. The dancers eyed
that bucket as though fascinated at the thought of cool
water on their swollen tongues. The leader stepped
forward.
"Our Father," he prayed earnestly in the Shoshone
tongue, "give this water your blessing. We thank you
that you have given us the gift of water, which makes
things grow. Bless it, that these men who have come
into the dagoo wunaroi feverish and with sickness, and
that those who have become hot and thirsty and weak
from standing here, may find relief in this great gift.
Bless this water, as all water must be blessed by You,
that all people may drink of Your gift and be well."
The bucket was passed. One by one the dancers
drank the bitter stuff and were immediately violently
ill and retching. But the illness soon passed. The
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dancers gathered their blankets about them and left
the dance place, stumbling a little uncertainly toward
the river where they would bathe and refresh them­selves.
Riders had chased a fat steer through the encamp­ment
earlier in the morning. Now, slaughtered, it
would serve as the main course of the feast which was
being prepared. Bread and fruit, sweets and canned
goods and veg;etables had been donated and were be­ing
arranged for the hungry dancers. When they ca~e
up from the river they would gorge themselves to theIr
hearts' content.
We lingered as the dance place slowly emptied.
Men and women were coming in as the dancers went
away. These newcomers brought garments which they
tied about the center pole.
We learned that they expected a magical trans­mission
of healing through this act. Those who could
not attend the dance or had no one to dance for them
had sent garments and expected a blessing through
this act of faith. However poor other members of the
tribe might be, they would never remove these garments,
or touch them. Like the center pole, which would
stand long after the other dance place poles had been
blown down or rubbed down by stock, the garments
were taboo.
Summer sun and ram would fad them. Winter
blizzards would whip them to shreds. Spring rains
would reduce them to a sodden mass of indistinguish­able
rags, and still they would cling there.
Then, the lush green Wyoming snmmer would come
again. Once more vivid red Indian paintbrush and
blue larkspur and waxen-yellow cacti would J:>loom in
the sage and the sweet grass would wave Its green
spears. Along the creek banks the white sage and the
pale green willow and th~ fragrant sweet ~lover would
be reflected in the chucklmg water. And m the hearts
of the Indians the old, old urge would be stirring.
The days would lengthen and grow warmer, an.d
the people would go about their ir:i?,ating and theIr
haying calmly, but they would be waItmg.
Then a man would go up into the mountains. He
would fast as his forefathers had fasted. He would
pray, and ' when he received the vision to put up a Sun
Dance he would return and send out the word.
The word would spread as if by magic. The men
would be chosen to go to the mountains after the cere­monial
poles. These who wished to dance would have
their women start work on dance aprons and beaded
belts and fancy embroidered shawls. The women would
begin their old arguments about the relative merits of
rushes and sage and willows for pallets.
But the casual observer would never guess that the
Indians' hearts were beating to a faster tempo. There
would be no outward flurry to stir the curiosity of
strangers, and only those in sympathy with the old ways
and the ancient magic would know the people ~ere
waiting. \Vaiting for the call of the Sun Dance drum.
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