Photographs and Text by Tailyr Irvine July 30, 2022

Powwow Season in Full Bloom

From spring to summer, Native American families travel the country to celebrate and compete in competitions wearing intricate garments assembled across generations.

Siliye Pete, a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, wore an outfit that represented not only herself, but also her family and tribe. In addition to hair ties made by her stepmother, her otter skins were a gift from her father, her necklace was made by her mother and her bracelets came from her niece. She held a pink umbrella that matched her sparkling pink acrylic nails. The otter skins wrapped around her braids were tied with pink beaded hair ties, and a pink shawl was draped around her shoulders.

“Everyone knows pink is my color,” said Ms. Pete, a 24-year-old teacher. “My stepmom made the hair ties, and I made the rest of my outfit to match them. My nails were just a vibe for the summer.”

Ms. Pete was one of hundreds of dancers attending the 122nd annual Arlee Celebration powwow held over the Fourth of July weekend in Arlee, Mont., a town of fewer than 600 in the valley of the Flathead Reservation, which spans nearly 1.3 million acres of mountainous landscape and rolling hills. The celebration — a mix of dance and drum competitions, traditional ceremonies and games — serves as a space for multiple tribes to gather to compete, eat traditional foods, meet new babies, and visit with relatives and old friends.

“Dancing is prayer. We pray and dance for the people who can’t be there.”

The five-day event hosted by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, which have approximately 8,000 members, began with a memorial dance. A procession of tribal members entered the arena holding photographs of loved ones who had died the year before, as each of the names was read over a loudspeaker.

The next day the small town welcomed hundreds of dancers and singers from across the United States and Canada to compete in various categories divided by age groups. Children, teenagers, men, women and elders each participated in fancy dance, traditional style, chicken dance, grass dance and jingle dance, with outfits designed for specific categories.

Fancy dance outfits for both men and women are known for elaborate ribbon design and bright colors that swirl while they perform footwork with increasing speed, and acrobatic steps and motions based on a double step. Fancy dancers are judged on their knowledge of the dance style and how well they match the quick footwork with the ever-changing beat of the drum.

In contrast to that, those competing in traditional style are outfitted in garments that are more subdued, matching the controlled nature of the women’s traditional dance, which involves bending the knees with a slight up and down motion of the body. The chicken dance replicates the strut of a prairie chicken, while the grass dance, whose outfits are distinguished by their long fringe that sways as the dancer moves, is meant to imitate the stomping of grass.

Jingle dresses, worn to perform the jingle dance, are recognizable by the unique pattern of metal cones, or jingles, hanging from a cloth dress that move together to create the distinctive jingle sound the dress is named for — similar to the shaking of a jar of coins.

“If she understands herself as both an individual and as part of this community she will never get lost.”

An explosion of ribbons, cloth and jingles covered Gwen Lankford’s dining room table in the months leading up to the powwow. Her daughter Cecilia Spencer, 13, outgrew her prepandemic jingle dress and the pair spent hours together choosing fabric and building her new outfit together. They tied ribbon to 200 cones, using pliers to tightly close the metal cones around the knotted ribbon before sewing them onto her dress.

“The change from 11 years old to 13 is so big,” said Ms. Lankford, who has been making Cecilia’s dance outfits since she was born. “Not just physically, but mentally, too. She is coming into her own identity and needs to have independence and ownership over her dress.”

Ms. Lankford said that designing the dress with her daughter allowed Cecilia to see herself reflected in the outfit and helped her understand who she is as she becomes a young woman. To remind her where she came from, the duo sewed dragonflies from Cecilia’s first jingle dress onto the regalia of her new outfit.

“She needs to know who she is so she can come back to that when the world gets rocky,” Ms. Lankford said. “If she understands herself as both an individual and as part of this community, she will never get lost.” The pair finished the dress the week before the powwow.

Because of the pandemic, this summer is the first in two years that many families were able to travel for the powwow season, which begins in April and ends in September. Families, dancers and singers from across the country spend their summer living out of their vehicles, camping and traveling the circuit of powwows, known as the powwow trail, with these gatherings held by different tribal communities every weekend throughout the season.

The Kickingwoman family, from the Blackfeet Reservation in northern Montana, spent the months leading up to powwow season preparing for a summer on the road, attending a different powwow each weekend.

“We don’t work in the summer: This is what we do, this is how we make money,” said George Kickingwoman, a Blackfeet singer in the drum group Black Lodge. The Kickingwoman children compete in the dances while their father sings. In addition to the dance competitions, powwows host singing contests for drum groups. All categories have prizes that often include cash as well as blankets and beadwork.

A young chicken dancer, Thomas Addison, 14, explained that when he dances, the world falls away. For him, it’s about more than winning the competitions (although he does love to win). “It’s about dancing for the people who can’t,” he said.

For Rachel Arlee Bowers, 80, an elder whose family the town is named after, seeing the arena full of dancers was healing. “Dancing is prayer,” Ms. Arlee Bowers said. “We pray and dance for the people who can’t be there. Those that are sick and those that want to dance but can’t. People like me.”

Sitting in a wheelchair in her traditional buckskin dress with her small Chihuahua, Tiny, on her lap, Ms. Arlee Bowers recalled when Native Americans were not allowed to practice their religion and were persecuted for conducting tribal ceremonies. It was not until 1978, when Congress passed the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, that Native Americans were allowed to exercise their right to traditional ceremonies and celebrations.

Given that legacy, passing down pieces of regalia from generation to generation means much more to Ansen Eagletail, a 14-year-old chicken dancer who wore a headpiece called a roach that once belonged to his grandfather. It’s one of the oldest pieces in his family, and its history makes it Ansen’s favorite. His family, of the Tsuutʼina Nation from Alberta, Canada, spends their summers on the powwow trail. The Arlee powwow was the fourth of 13 powwows the family planned to attend this summer. Mr. Eagletail’s father is an M.C., and he and his older brother both dance competitively.

“You keep putting things together, changing them and mixing it up. It takes a lifetime.”

Like Ansen, many dancers collect pieces over their lifetime and often as they go from children to elders, their outfits grow and change with them — serving as a reflection of both their past and present selves. Many young dancers who outgrew the outfits they wore before the pandemic debuted new regalia this year. Though some were completely new creations, most included small pieces from their previous outfits, initiating the beginning of countless transformations their outfits will undergo.

“You keep putting things together, changing them and mixing it up,” said Bob Woodcock, a 59-year-old Salish traditional dancer wearing beadwork that his grandmother made for him 40 years ago, a breastplate that was a gift from his uncle and a hat that belonged to a late relative. “It takes a lifetime.”

Produced by Tanner Curtis and Shannon Lin.

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