Last year about this time, I posted about some local high school girls who decided to dress up and play Indian at Stanford's powwow. The post caused a huge ruckus, I ended up getting "legal threats" from the girls' parents, and a lot of people hated me for a minute. But since the internet has a memory of about 2 weeks, if that, it blew over and everyone forgot. But being the person that I am, I'm stirring the pot again, and have a couple of offenders from this year's powwow.
First we've got the guy above, all decked out in his floor length chicken feather headdress, warpaint, and a serape (equally opportunity appropriator--pulling in the south of the border Indigenous peoples). Spotted Friday night by a couple of the undergrads, and gladly posed for a picture with them.
Then this girl, taken on my cell phone, so much of the effect is lost. But she had multi-colored feathers in her hair and warpaint on her face, and right before I snapped the picture, was war whooping (hand over mouth, other hand in the air) to her friend across the way (who was also wearing feathers and paint). There were a couple more I spotted, especially out in the dance circle during inter-tribals (where everyone, including spectators, is invited to dance), including a guy wearing a poncho/serape with a cowboy hat, and beating a hand-drum, and another guy with an entire coyote or puma or something (very dead) draped over his back.
In the grand scheme of powwows, Stanford powwow tends to have a lower ratio of wannabes "liberally interpreting" Indianess (i.e. creating an image of what they think an Indian is based off things they read on the internet and supplies they can find at a craft shop) than some powwow's I've been to, but it still makes me angry.
I still don't know why people think it's ok to don feathers and warpaint and come to a Native community cultural event. I still maintain that it would be exactly the same as donning blackface and wandering into a Black community event. These people are dressing up as a race other than their own, based off of egregious and racist stereotypes from hollywood and other forms of pop culture. All they have to do is look out in the powwow dance circle to see that they look nothing like "real" Indians. But the American narrative of "playing Indian" is so ingrained, people don't seem to see it as taboo, the way blackface remains today.
The other big trend that everyone was sporting were these (really unattractive) feather hair-clips, which unfortunately I didn't get a picture of, but they were kinda like this:
(if you really like it, you can buy it here for $9.50. Or you could go for a walk in the woods for the feathers and pick up some string and plastic beads and make it for less than a buck...if you like the look of dirty woodland feathers and cheap twine in your hair.)
The vendor booth of people who were selling them was overflowing the whole weekend. They came in a bunch of colors, and had more feathers and were (if you can believe it) more unattractive.
The feather clips don't inherently bother me, much like these feather hair extensions that are all the rage right now don't bother me as-is, but it's the whole aesthetic that the powwow goers were buying into that bothers me. I can bet you anything that those people would not have been nearly as interested in the feather clips if they were at the Stanford Mall instead of the Stanford Powwow. They see it as a "safe" way of playing Indian--though most of them would say "oh, it was just pretty!"--I think it really runs a lot deeper than that.
So, clearly, the idea of dressing up as an Indian at a powwow is still alive and well. Excuse me, I think I'm going to go put on my blonde wig and pearls and go crash a WASP-y cocktail party. What? It doesn't work that way? ::shakes fist:: Damn you, white privilege!!!
Let's set the scene: Friday afternoon, Stanford powwow--one of the largest powwow's on the West Coast. Three Native powwow committee members and a friend are checking in on the vendor booths, making sure things are ready to go, and they come across the group pictured above. 6 non-Native girls, decked out in warpaint, feathers, fringe, and moccassins--playing Indian at its worst. I'll let my friend Leon tell the whole story:
While we were walking around Powwow on Friday, checkin out the vendors, we saw this pack of little white girls come running in from the street. Now, needless to say, we were shocked at the sight. We pretty much all just stopped in our tracks, and were speechless for a minute, as we looked on in sheer disbelief. After going through a few (angry) options in our heads about what to do, we figured we should have a little fun with it first (especially since there was this crew of little like six year old Native girls who were already making fun of them)...anyways, me and Lisa devised a plan to get this picture of them for you and your blog. So Lisa approached the girls and said "Excuse me girls..." (silence fell upon the land)..."could we get a picture of you for our newsletter?" "Of course!!!" the girls replied with excitement...
So girls, here's your "newsletter" debut. After Leon and crew took the picture, the powwow security team talked to them and brought them over to the director of the Stanford Native Center for some education on the issue, so (hopefully) they at least walked away from the experience with a new understanding of their actions. If they didn't, here, again, is my anti-headdress manifesto.
I was telling my mom about the incident, and she said, "Honey, you can't be too hard on them. Clearly they just didn't know any better." The thing is, they should have known better.
These girls are students at Palo Alto High School. Definitely one of the best high schools in the area, if not the state. It is a high school that turns out tops students who go on to top colleges, and enrolls children of professors, stanford employees, and other well educated silicon valley execs. To top it off, the school is literally across the street from Stanford. Across the street from a school that hosts the largest student run powwow in the nation for 39 years running, that is home to nearly 300 Native students, that has one of the strongest college Native communities in California.
I would like to think that the combination of those factors would equate some level of understanding, that a high school of their caliber would incorporate some type of curriculum on Native history, or at least a basic level of cultural sensitivity. Clearly, that doesn't seem to be the case.
If these girls survived a talking-to by Winona (the director of the Native Center), they know what they did was wrong, and why. I feel posting their picture and story is enough of a public shaming. But as I struggle to find an analogy to another community event to analyze this incident, I'm still left scratching my head.
Why did these girls think it was ok to dress up like ridiculous "Indians" to come to a Native community event? Would these girls have dressed in blackface to go to a African American community gathering? Wear a sombrero, poncho, and drawn on mustache to a Ballet Folklorico concert? No.
But powwows, at least in areas that are not majority-Native, tend to invite non-Native spectators, encourage their participation in things like intertribal dances, and allow time and space for education about Native history and powwow traditions. I think that's a great thing. Powwows show the vibrancy and currency of our cultures and evolving traditions; they show we are still here, that traditions are strong, that our communities exist and will continue to exist. They expose thousands of people to Native cultures that they may not ever encounter otherwise. They allow for Native artists and craftspeople to make a living selling their jewelry and art.
However, this openness and encouragement of non-Native participation creates a fine line--we want you to come, to learn, to watch, to engage; but that doesn't mean it's ok to mock our cultures in your attempts at participation.
I felt like that line was crossed a couple of weeks ago at the Harvard powwow, where our MC (a well respected MC throughout Indian country, great man, very focused on the educational aspects of powwow) called for a "Spectator Special". He invited the non-Indian spectators out to for a dance competition at the end of the afternoon, to real contest songs.
There were separate songs for men and women, and multiple rounds--semi-finals, finals, ect. The winners were chosen by the audience, and given a cash prize (like $5). As I stood on the sidelines and watched, I couldn't help but feel extremely uncomfortable. It was like we had just given these men and women permission to mock us.
They hopped and ran around--one man even took off his socks to spin around like the fancy dancers. The thing was, it wasn't like they were clowning, or smiling, or being silly. They were dead serious. They had looks of concentration, were sweating, breathing hard. I think I would have felt better if it was a joke--a chance for the Native dancers to take a break and poke fun at the spectators, almost like the switch dance where the men dance like women and women like men. But instead, these spectators reverted to the worst of stereotypes, jumping around like "war dances" around the fire from a spaghetti western.
I want to share the video I took on my cell phone, but beware, the quality is, well, what you would expect from a cell phone. And the sound was so bad I had to plop a Northern Cree contest song behind it so you could still get the effect. In sum, don't judge the filmmaker, judge the content of the film.
I'm hoping you can see the young girls running around the powwow circle, and the intensity of the mom in the tank top and baseball cap. She went on to "win".
I don't know if I'm being oversensitive on the spectator special, but it really made me feel weird, like it somehow belittled the talent and tradition of the Native dancers. Those dancers have been dancing since they were little, know the traditions and stories behind their style of dance, and have invested time and money in their regalia. To almost imply that spectators are just as good after a few hours of watching the dancing just seems wrong.
So, in sum, powwows are an amazing opportunity for education of the non-Native community on Native traditions and cultures, and may serve as one of the only chances that these spectators have to interact with Native peoples in a modern and culturally relevant setting. However, there's a difference between learning and appropriating. Clearly some of these spectators need to learn the difference.
