PowWow


This photo and the two below shows the beadwork on the back of the dresses, as well as the hair pieces. The girls/young women often do the beading themselves, a long laborious job but they do it to look good as they dance. You can see the workmanship that goes into all of the dresses.

 


The Elder in this photo is Emmett Eastman, he is well known at all MN/SD powwows as he attends them all if he is able to.
He has run on all Continents on Earth, and is a very well respected man. You will see Emmett dancing along the outer ring of the Circle at Powwow, he doesn't dance fast, but goes at his own pace, always a joy to see him.




This Regalia shown in the 2 photos above is known as a fancy shawl dance outfit. The shawl always has loads of ribbons attached that sway with the movement of the dancer. The dance is very fast and energetic, which is why mainly teens and young women do it although sometimes you do see an older female dancing with a shawl as well. This dance has become very popular in the past 20+ years.

The above 2 photos are of the Jingle Dress dance. The pale blue dress is a more modern style, with fancy material and lots of decoration. The dark dress with the stripes on the sleeves is more traditional, the jingles show up more, as they are the main component of this style of dress. As the woman dances the jingles hit each other and make a noise. Every dress sounds different, due to the metal the jingle (cone) is made from and the placement of all 300+ jingles. Again a very energetic dance if done properly.

As the story goes, a medicine man's granddaughter was very ill. He had a dream in which a spirit wearing the jingle dress came to him and told him to make one of these dresses and put it on his granddaughter to cure her. When he awoke, he and his wife proceeded to assemble the dress as described by the spirit of his dream. When finished, they and others brought his granddaughter to the dance hall and she put on the dress. During the first circle around the room, she needed to be carried. During the second circle around the room, she could barely walk and needed the assistance of several women. The third circle around the room she found she could walk without assistance and during the fourth circle around the room, she danced.

The jingle dress is made of a cloth, velvet or leather base adorned with jingles made out of a shiny metal. Traditionally and still common today, the jingles are made from the lids of snuff cans. These are bent and molded into triangular bell shapes and attached to the dress with ribbon or fabric in a pattern designed by the dancer. It takes between 400 and 700 jingles to make an adult jingle dress. (Some versions of this story say 365 jingles one for each day of the year.) This dance has been done since the 1950's and is very popular today.


I have 2 jingle dresses, one quite old and one a modern style. The one below is the modern one. The jingles on it have two feathers (meaning friendship) engraved in them.



The older one is on the chair in the photo below. My grand-daughter danced in it at the Pipestone Dakota Pow Wow when she was young (in the early 2000's) She will be 30 next month! Where does the time go to?!.

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