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] Date Posted:11:37:09 07/20/01 Fri
July 4th Pow Wow
The Pow Wow grounds sit off just the highway, the main thoroughfare connecting Salt Lake City to Steamboat Colorado, it is a two laner, a narrow road that runs through the rez. It has a large Pow Wow ground, planted in grass this year and large shade arbor forms a semi-circle around it with an opening on the east side where the flagpole sits. It is a level area, and scattered around are campsites, where native people and some visitors from around the world have come to take in the Pow Wow this year. Just to the south of the Pow Wow circle are the stew stands, temporary indian cafes set up to serve hamburgers, lemonade, indian tacos, coffee and lost of fry bread.
On the North side of the Pow Wow arena there are many small shade covers set up, where under them people have come to sell jewelry, bones, hides, t-shirts, sandpaintings, pottery, and trinkets of all sorts. Some camp next to their site with license plates from Montana, New Mexico, Wyoming, Washington and Oklahoma. They have all their goods layed out for anyone to come and see.
A young mother, a Ute woman brings her small child to the shade arbor surrounding the Pow Wow circle. It is July and she has spent some hours sewing a dance outfit for him. It is a small one, since he is a year and half old. She never learned to dance herself, her family never taught her, but she wants her son to know all about so she is going to have him grow up in the way of Pow Wow traditions so he can grow up to be a fancy dancer. She sets up the camping chairs in the second row, and prepares to stay there all day. It is early afternoon, the grand entry is at 7 tonight, but there will be intertribal dances, where everyone who comes can get out there and shake a leg.
A drum group, River Cree from Enoch, Alberta, a small place west of Edmonton in Canada gets here after driving 21 hours straight. They find an open spot under the arbor to sing for the next four days. There is room for fifteen drum groups to sing here. Word has spread the prize money is going to be as high as $30,000 this year, so the best dancers in Indian land are on the road to compete and dance. They have to be here by 7 tonight for Grand Entry. The are coming with names like Blackbird from Macy, Nebraska; Leaf from Standing Rock, North Dakota, Denny from Rocky Boy, Montana and Largo from Coyote Canyon. They will join the Windyboys, Sammaripas, Eaglechiefs, Cesspooches, Blackhairs, and so many others who have come to dance and see other wearing their new outfits and beadwork made over the long winter. The River Cree boys go to the North side of the arbor and find a good spot, they bring their chairs and set them up then they then go to find an open stew stand to eat some frybread and a cool drink.
An extended cab Chevy truck with a horse trailer is parked next to a stew stand on the East side, on the side of his shade covering it says Silvereagle. A Navajo guy in a baseball cap is stepping out of the horse trailer carrying flour for fry bread. He has an easy smile, his name is Clinton Jim. He came with his wife, two sons and daughter and they are serving frybread, mutton sandwiches, Navajo tacos, Navajo burgers-a hamburger sitting in a piece of frybread served with green chili. He comes from Eastern Navajo, a place called Crownpoint. This is how he makes his living, he is headed to Taos next week, and then to Dulce at Jicarilla Apache, then to Ohio for the Sac and Fox celebration in the next month. He looks at you with a smile and asks how you want your food and they make it fresh for you while you stand there. There is line at his stand full of brown faces waiting for the frybread.
Mexican Bob comes up and though he is 62, he hasn't gray hair on his head and he has been hauling shade and setting up arbors for those coming to camp. He has lived among the Utes for twenty years or more, his face is golden brown from working a lifetime as a landscaper in the local area, everyone knows him. He is thin, agile and moves like someone half his age. His real name is Pete, he says someone named him Mexican Bob a long time ago and the name stuck. He was born in Los Angeles a long time ago, moved with his father to a mining town and met his wife working as a migrant worker, and he came to this place and now it is his home. He has son who is six years old that follows him around closely, he wants to be just like his dad when he grows up he says.
A young man, a new dancer makes his way around the arbor to families setting up their chairs, putting in their water coolers and snacks for the long day ahead. He is from Reno, and is learning to dance, can someone help with how to tie a roach on, and he doesn't know how it stays on top of his head so it doesn't fall off when he is going to dance. A guy from Lapwai steps up and shows him to run his hair through the top and to braid his hair to make it tight on his head. He learns from someone who has been dancing a long time. He tells him when you are ready come back to us and we will make sure everything on your outfit is fastened on tight. You lose points for losing part of your stuff when you dance and it is bad luck.
The announcer for the Pow Wow, the MC steps up to the mike and tells everyone that Grand Entry is at 7, but that drum groups can gather in fifteen minutes to sing an intertribal song to warm up their voices. By the way he says, at the last Pow Wow someone lost their husband and at the end of the Pow Wow no one claimed him. He says he brought him along just in case his wife is here. Anyone that wants him can claim him at Lost & Found. He would like someone to take him home, so he won't have to take him back to Canada with him.
Let's see it's time to find a spot around this place to sit and watch. Oh, yes, there is a place right behind the young mother. She is sitting there in the shade, her son dressed to dance; he wears a silver concho belt. I know it well since I made it for him. The drum groups bring in their base drums and the sound of beating drums is heard around the arena.
The MC sends out word and the drums gather in the center of the Pow Wow arena, there are eight of them from many different places. They set up their chairs all together. They are going to sing a song all together, all eight drums. They sit down and in anticipation of what is to happen the sound of eagle bone whistles resound throughout the Pow Wow grounds. Dancers and singers run to the arena and a crowd gathers to see these drums sing altogether. The arena fills with dancers, young children, older women in traditional buckskins, young men with large feather bustles making noise as they walk from their bells ready to dance. Old men with their traditional outfits, grass dancers and a lot of others who are not dressed who want to step into the circle to take part in this beginning.
Just then the song starts and a the wail of the singers of all eight drums sounds out.
WWWWHHHHAAAAAAAAAYZYYYYUHHHHH!
The song beings and the Fourth of July Pow Wow at Fort Duchesne begins...
Date Posted:14:35:57 01/18/06 Wed
hi iam romeo waskahat sister i just wanted to say i love the drumgroup river cree and just say hi to romeo for me k peace out
Date Posted:12:44:10 04/25/07 Wed
watz up names danielle im from frog lake alberta but live in bonny but ya hey daniel steinhauer how do you know ma cuzin joey (fat kid) waskahat
Date Posted:12:45:20 07/26/07 Thu
>watz up names danielle im from frog lake alberta but
>live in bonny but ya hey daniel steinhauer how do you
>know ma cuzin joey (fat kid) waskahat
>hey danielle thats not nice u monkey and steinhauer was my friend from lac la biche
Date Posted:17:12:12 01/02/08 Wed
>watz up names danielle im from frog lake alberta but
>live in bonny but ya hey daniel steinhauer how do you
>know ma cuzin joey (fat kid) waskahat
u little loser joey im goign to beat u down like a 10 cent hoe
Date Posted:23:50:34 08/03/07 Fri
>hi iam romeo waskahat sister i just wanted to say i
>love the drumgroup river cree and just say hi to romeo
>for me k peace out
>hi im ashtin cree waskahat and you might not know me but i know romeo
Date Posted:00:00:15 08/04/07 Sat
>>hi iam romeo waskahat sister i just wanted to say i
>>love the drumgroup river cree and just say hi to romeo
>>for me k peace out
>>hi im ashtin cree waskahat and you might not know me
>but i know romeo i hope you and your wife courtney and your baby have a great life love you romeo my mom verna loves you too
Re: Fort Duchesne
Re: Fort Duchesne
waskahat
Re: waskahat