Cedartree Memorial Pow Wow

Tonight Alison and I went to the 33rd Annual BYU Cedartree Memorial Pow Wow with Ouray, one of my co-workers at EY. It was our first time going to a Native American pow wow.  When we arrived we walked around and looked at all of the booths that were set up. There were a lot of Native American arts and crafts including jewelry, moccasins, and sculptures.  There were little baby moccasins that we considered buying for little Skylee - except she's not Native.  Too bad. We also got some food. We had Navajo tacos and they were delicious. Way better than the ones I ate in elementary school.

After we ate we headed into the ballroom where the main events were being held. Bleachers were set up all around the edges of the ballroom leaving a large open space in the middle. We got to our seats a little after 6. I wanted to get there right on time so that we could see the grand entry, but when we got to our seats nothing was going on. Ouray told us that native events never start on time. Eventually, they did get started and the grand entry was really pretty cool. The first people who came in were native veterans carrying the US flag. They were followed by a few members of the BYU ROTC dressed in their formal uniforms. After the flags, there were tons of dancers all dressed in their native gear. They came in dancing and the drums were beating and people were chanting. They walked around the open area and eventually made a circle around the flag bearers. It was a really cool sight.

After the opening ceremony, they had a few other warm-up events. They did a cakewalk and also had some Native beauty queens who got up and talked about their tribe and events that they were holding. There was also had the little kids do a tiny tot dance. Alison really enjoyed this because there were some little kids and they were all dancing and having a fun time. It was really cute.

I learned a lot during the pow wow. Ouray was sitting next to me and explained a lot of stuff to me. To Alison and I, most of the dancing looked the same and the songs all sounded very similar, but Ouray has been learning about this stuff his whole life. He would point out a girl whose headdress had a bald eagle feather and tell me why that was significant. Or he would explain how the beat of a particular song indicated it was an honor song. He would also describe the difference between fancy dancers, grass dancers, and traditional dancers. There were a lot of intricacies and depth to the traditions we observed. I will probably never really be very familiar with Native American culture, but I enjoyed learning about it tonight. I also gained a deeper appreciation for the rich traditions of the Native peoples and the bonds that bind their communities together.