Closed Captions Audio Described

Bob Tom, a member of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, explains the cultural and spiritual significance of powwows. He describes various traditional dance styles, including grass dancing, jingle dress, and fancy shawl, and discusses how powwows serve as gatherings for honoring veterans, celebrating treaties, and transmitting cultural knowledge. Tom emphasizes the powwow circle as a safe learning environment and community space.

Transcript

0:01 Gentlemen, and I would love to welcome you to the Corps of Discovery II. We are commemorating the bicentennial of the original Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery that happened from 1803 to 1806 and true to Lewis and Clark in 1806, whenever they were making their hasty return to Saint Louis Missouri, as are we
0:23 so by September of this year, we'll be back in Saint Louis. Grand Ronde is the second venue on our travels back to Missouri and we have been welcomed with open arms here and we're very thankful for the Grand Ronde community. And so without further ado, I would like to introduce Mr Bob Tom and he is going to be speaking about powwows and other cultural members, or cultural gatherings, and he is a member
0:47 of the Confederated tribes of Grand Ronde. So please welcome Bob Tom. Thank you. Glad to see you here today out and about. Have you been in the casino? Ok, good. Thank you. For that. Oh, I'm 68 years old.
1:10 I'm a member of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde My tribal affiliations are the Shasta, the Klamath River, the Rogue River, and the Umpqua from the east side of the Coast Range and uh Ashland area. My mother's, that's my father's side. My mother's side is along the lower Rogue River and the Sixes River. And I'm a, a descendant of the Mikonotunne Band of the
1:34 Tututni from the Rogue River. So those are my tribal affiliations and both my mother's tribe and my father's tribe were relocated to the reservations here at Grand Ronde and in Siletz uh but I'm really from Southern Oregon. I've been an MC for about 35 years. And so
1:56 they, the people that are putting this on, asked me if I would come and talk about powwows how many here have been to powwows before? Ok. And, uh, so they asked me to talk about them about powwows and I can talk about other cultural events, but powwows in itself will take up probably all of our time.
2:20 And as an MC, a lot of times I get to sit up or stand up on a podium like this and watch the powwow arena. And in my 35 years, it's been a wonderful experience seeing uh the grand entries of the powwow and the different styles of dance and the people that come and the audience and the vendors, uh
2:43 and the people that are working the floor. So it's been a wonderful uh experience for me. And it's one that I look forward to all the time. I'm going to MC a powwow at Portland State University in May and I emceed a powwow out of Southern Oregon University, uh, are, uh, down in Ashland and also
3:08 Cow Creek Powwow. Way up there at South Umpqua Falls. It's about 45 miles east of their casino. Way back up there in the mountain by an ancient, uh, fishing site of the Cow Creek Band of the Umpqua. So, uh, this is, uh, powwow is the way of life. You see some of our family,
3:30 it's a family. Uh, powwow is a big family. You see some of our family. The vendors in there and even the ones that are making fried bread in the food. They're all part of our powwow family along with the drummers and the dancers. And so a powwow is sort of a modern name. When I was really young,
3:52 uh, they asked if you were going to the war dance. Uh, that's what they used to call powwows. You're gonna go to the war dance this weekend. Sure. You know, and, uh, powwows are the war dances. Uh, they're many things, uh, they're spiritual and they have powwows for a lot of reasons. Like we all signed treaties with the US government.
4:17 So a lot of tribes have a powwow on their treaty days when the treaties were signed. Uh, they have veterans powwows to honor veterans. We have a veteran powwow here in July. And if any of you, uh, men or women here are veterans. I invite you to our powwow. We honor all veterans, Indian and non-indian. Uh, we have veterans from,
4:42 uh, other countries that come. And so it's a time that we take for one weekend last year we had 255 veterans come in with our, uh, grand entry the first day and we had 34 World War Two veterans come. And so it's, uh,
5:04 it, it really makes us feel good because our dancers, uh, all come there to honor veterans and for our drums to be able to sing for veterans. You know, from World War Two on up is a real honor and it's the way they're supposed to treat their drum and it's why they became drummers and singers. We have uh
5:27 gourd dancing and round dancing. So we have a lot of kind of powwows and gatherings. Um They have, uh, we have two kind of powwows. They're called traditional and competition powwows and a traditional powwow. There's no contest and everybody just comes to dance,
5:50 but they have exhibitions of each style of dress. We have uh several main styles of dancing. We have traditional men and women. We have grass dancers, they've got fringe on their outfit and they started back in the Wisconsin area and out in the plains. And,
6:14 uh, when the people would gather together for different from different directions and were gonna meet these grass dancers would go out and mat down the grass prairie, it matted all down real flat so everybody else could come out and dance. And so they have a real unique foot movement, how they matted that grass down.
6:38 So the other people could, uh, come out and dance. We have jingle dress and they have little cones in there. I think I saw somebody selling some jingle dress cones. Uh, I've heard two stories about how those were created. Uh, One was this man had a dream,
7:02 and in the dream he saw this, saw this dress and this outfit and this, they have about seven different foot movements that they use. Nowadays, they only use about three of them, but they used to have seven different kind of foot movements that they would use for a jingle dress. And he saw this in his dream. And uh so he told these four ladies and they made
7:26 the outfits and came out and started dancing in that jingle dress style. The other story I heard was these ladies were on a reservation where they had a extreme alcohol problem on the reservation. And they tried to think of ways that they might make a statement and deal with that.
7:51 And so they decided themselves to become sober and they decided they were gonna put one of those jingles on a dress every day, they were sober and they got the 365 jingles on that dress. They came out and started dancing before the people and told them how these 365 jingles got on this dress and that they danced
8:15 sober, clean and sober from there on. Uh, those jingles uh were once made out of Calumet lids. Some of you ladies know what Calumet lids are. And also later on, they started using snus lids. They were smaller, easier to turn. So,
8:36 so those are a couple of them. Uh They, they have a fast and fancy double bustle. They are two bustle men wear and they dance real fast and fancy. They have uh a fancy shawl dancer women and that this is the newest dance in our powwows. Uh The double bustle is, is a real old style of dance for men
9:01 and they really go fast. It's a northern style and a southern style and they really go fast and our young ladies were watching them and it looked like so much fun. They wanted to dance fast and fancy, but they did uh they didn't have permission and they didn't have an outfit.
9:22 So some young ladies started putting on men's outfits and going out and dancing with the men. Well, I've heard that a couple of them won a men's contest. So they say that that's why the men start coming up with this Fast and Fancy Shawl dance and they allow this to be a new dance
9:46 and they have uh a bright shawl and they have totally color coordinated outfits and in the men's fast and fancy and in the women's fast and fancy you will see every color of the rainbow and every color that existed since from the rainbow. They're just beautiful outfits and they dance and these are young girls because they dance
10:10 uh fast and fancy. I can remember in the fifties and early sixties at Delta Park Powwow up in Portland who had, there's been a powwow there for many, many years where some of the ladies were dancing in the men's fast and fancy because they didn't have the fast and fancy shawl dance So that's one of the newest dances we have
10:35 uh round bustles, men put bustles on their arms and at one time, they were made of just that one longest feather in a pheasant and in the pheasant tail is one really long feather. They would make their bustles from just that one feather. They also used to use uh magpie,
10:59 magpie feathers in their round bustle and they have a silent dance. It's kind of like a prairie chicken. They kind of look like that prairie chicken when they dance. And uh that's a round bustle. Uh So at a powwow
11:20 they have if it's a contest powwow, each one of those styles of dress, go out with other people that have that style of dress and they compete. And in nowadays in indian powwows, you might, if you went first, you might win anywhere from $4000 to $200.
11:44 And the committee will have first, they'll usually pay 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Sometimes they'll pay 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th. But they will have a contest for 6 to 12, 13 to 18, and then 19 to 50 then 50 to 60
12:06 then maybe, for 65 or maybe 65 and over. This is for men and women both. So you can see if they, when there's a contest powwow like that, that committee has to have four to five hundred thousand dollars along with paying drummers and then feeding people and doing other uh taking care of some of the other costs.
12:30 So powwows over the years has not only been something where we can gather together and be with each other and dance and sing, meet new people, have a good time, but it's also become a big part of a lot of tribal business. Casinos put on big powwows,
12:52 the, the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, put on a big powwow the third weekend in August. And they bring in some of the top drums in the world from Canada and around the United States and those top drums from the United States and Canada attract some of the top dancers from Canada. Because if you're a dancer
13:15 and you, and there's this one drum that is just the best drum in the world. You want to go out there and you wanna dance because it's a contest between the drum and the dancer. The dancer has to keep beat with the drum. They have to start when the drum starts and they have to quit when the drum stops. So drums are always trying to trick them and
13:38 stop it early or putting a little tail on it and taking it a little longer. So it's always a contest between the drummers and the dancers. Uh Our dancers uh a lot of these young, it's a like it's a family affair and you'll see kids in their diapers yet with outfits on
14:02 and then you'll see grandmas and grandpas, you'll see people out there 80 years old dancing and all of the ages in between and a lot of families will travel the whole summer from powwow to powwow and getting in contest and that's their summer. They not only have fun but then if they win, they, they kind of pay their way.
14:27 But you can see some of our young people, they aspire to be a champion dancer and it takes a lot of work. You not only have to make your outfit, you have to upkeep it because there's a lot of wear and tear on outfits out there when you're dancing and when you're packing and unpacking, putting on, taking off.
14:52 So there's constant upkeep for your outfit and it's gotta look good if you're in a contest. So here's these young people that aspire to be a champion dancer. And in our Indian world, we're happy when our young people do because in our tribes, there's a certain percent that go to college, a certain percent go to get jobs and work.
15:16 There's some play basketball, some play softball, not everybody dances and not everybody can be a champion dancer. And so when we see some of our young people take on the hard work, the conditioning, the practice and uh to become a champion dancer, it makes, it makes all of us proud.
15:38 But at the same time that powwow circle because we hold powwows like on the dirt, in the grass, we hold powwows in uh tribes have powwow grounds, arbors, we have powwows at conventions. I've danced and been an MC and
16:00 in the fanciest ballroom in the hotel even had mirrors on the ceiling. I don't know if the rooms did. I wasn't, I didn't stay there, but this fancy place in a hotel. And so we have powwows a lot of different places in gymnasiums in high schools and colleges. And so,
16:25 uh there's urban powwows, there's rural powwows, there's powwows way up in the mountain. Like I did at Cow Creek, in Ashland, in Phoenix. There's powwows in downtown Portland, there's powwows and we have powwows a lot of different places. One thing that
16:48 I appreciate most of all about our Indian way of life because powwows and when we gather is a big part of our Indian way of life, you can't read you. You don't see a lot of misbehavior at a powwow People that are in a powwow circle, bring their family up to know what the protocols are and how to behave
17:12 and how to be respectful. And so uh it's a nice place to be and if uh hopefully some of you that went raised your hand, hopefully you got treated well at the powwow or felt OK about being there because at a powwow, we, we appreciate people coming. And
17:35 its their one time that we can kind of give them a little visual about what one part of our life is. I live in Kaiser and I go to a powwow at least once every month out of the 12 months of the year. And
17:55 I MC probably 15 or 16 powwows a year. So it's part of my, it's part of my life. I live in Kaiser. I've been retired about nine years and I golf and spoil my grandkids. Those are my main jobs. But I go to a powwow.
18:18 And when I go to this powwow, I'm surrounded by 90% Indians, I'm there. And then there's Indians at the drum, there's Indians dancing, there's Indians selling, there's Indians walking around and that sort of reinforces me kind of uh makes me feel good,
18:42 strengthens me, muscles me up. And then until the next powwow and I'm surrounded by all of this family that I have these vendors and all of these, all of these people that I've met over these 35 years, I've seen them dance and quit dancing and seen their kids dance and their grandkids. But one thing I like about the powwow most of all.
19:05 Now, all of you have had kids and you send them to school, you guys all have kids, send them to public schools. And at sometimes during your kids' life in the school, you were concerned about how healthy that place was, how safe that place was, how they were treated. If they were treated like they were liked
19:29 or if they were treated like they were disliked or if they were good or they weren't good, people looked at it that way. The powwow circle is one of the safest and the best learning environments I've ever been a part of. We bless the dance arena wherever we dance.
19:53 I don't care if it's in a hotel or, or where we bless that arena. And so when people come out to that arena, they're in a safe learning environment. Any of you could go out there dressed just like you are and dance around and hop and jump and have a good time
20:16 and a few people might smile but no one's gonna run you off the floor. No one's gonna yell, you know, catcall and yell at you and you'll see little kids following a traditional dancer or they'll be following a grass dancer. They see somebody and they see the way they dance and they, they like it. So they follow a older dancer
20:39 so they can kind of start learning. You'll see kids with half an outfit on, you'll see people with full outfits on. It doesn't matter if you don't have to be good. And that goes for the drums too. There's a lot of drummers. I've been drumming for 35 years and I'm not a good drummer or singer, but I love it. And if I don't do it
21:04 every so often, I start missing it, I need to, I need to sit down and drum for the people. And so everything about that circle, the drummers and the dancers, it's a safe learning environment. You could come out and I've always appreciated that people, if somebody does act up
21:28 that we have what we call arena directors or whip men. If you're on a reservation, you may have a whip man and they have a whip and they can use it and they can run your kids off and they can do all kinds of things on a reservation. If it's not on a reservation, they usually have just what they call arena director. Somebody that has charge of the floor, the arena directors I've worked with,
21:52 I've always appreciated and there could be some young person that was sort of acting up simply because they didn't know the protocols. You'd never see that person chew them out and shake their finger at him right there on the dance floor. They'd wait till the song was over and the next song started and then they, you, you'd see him way over there, out of the way,
22:15 talking to that young person talking about how they were behaving and how they weren't supposed to behave that way. And so it would, it's, it's that kind of thing. You don't ever want to, uh, tell somebody they're doing something bad. You want to always encourage them to continue, uh, dancing. So, we have, uh,
22:40 a powwow and there's a committee, uh, and they do a lot of work. I've been MCing for 35 years and I've never been on a powwow committee and I'm never gonna be on a powwow committee. Those guys work so hard and I've gone to powwow after powwow and I get there half an hour before the
23:03 powwow starts and they're pulling their hair out and they've been arguing and something wasn't ready and we're not ready. And so, and so didn't do this and they're just in a frazzle and, but I've never been to a bad powwow. I tell 'em just relax. We got drums here, we got dancers here. You got food, you got vendors, you know, don't worry,
23:27 you know, it's gonna be fine. But they do, they do a tremendous amount of work. Uh, and they, uh, really try to make everything good for the people that come, the drummers, the dancers, the audience, everybody, uh a lot of times tribes support tribes put $100,000 into their
23:50 uh powwow committees. And the reason they do that is because it brings a lot of visitors. So they, so they can be with us on our reservation so they can be with us for a day or two days uh at Grand Ronde and at Siletz, they both have wonderful camping places.
24:12 You got a trailer, pull it over, set it up visit, you know, and, and so they know that people come and they want to make sure that people are treated right and given uh a good experience about our powwows. Uh committees do a lot of fundraising. They sell things, they have food sales and
24:35 uh they have raffles, they sell tickets, uh a lot of times at contests, a family will sponsor a contest. They'll put up $500 for first place and maybe its traditional. Uh They may be honoring somebody in their family. So you have uh sponsors and when you go to powwow, all of those vendors
24:57 pay some money to the committee and they may also have to donate something to the raffle uh as part of uh fundraising, I don't have a watch. So somebody tell me what time it is.
25:19 2:30. Ok. At a powwow as an Indian person and all of the, and all of the other people. I know that live the powwow way.
25:42 A powwow is many things. If, if you come to a powwow, you may enjoy walking around all of the vendors and looking at what they have, you may enjoy some of the food, fried bread and Huckleberry jam is good. You know, uh you may enjoy the dancing. You may enjoy the singing, uh Just people watching.
26:04 There's a powwow serves a lot of purposes. There are ceremonies that go on at powwows when our people gather together, when we have our drums, when we have dancers, traditional dancers, when we have spiritual people, when we have equipment and arena directors,
26:30 those that's the only time that some things can be done. If you honor somebody in our Indian world, you honor them before the people in public. So when you have a big gathering like a powwow, then that's a good time to honor somebody because you get up and you talk about that person
26:53 and you say why you're honoring that person. Maybe you were sick and they came and cut firewood for you. Maybe they helped you when your car broke down and you lived with them for a month, all kinds of reasons. People will honor somebody but it's done in a public way like at a powwow. And I've always found that to be good because
27:17 you all live in a community and you don't know everything about everybody in your community. You may see somebody all the time, but they may have done some really great things and you're not even aware of it. So all of a sudden here at a powwow, they get up and they give this man, this woman something
27:39 and they talk about the good things that they did and it gives you a different, a different look, gives you a different perception of that person. You never knew that person did things like that. So doing things in a public way is something that's good for our community. Good for young people to hear how people help each other.
28:03 So there's ceremonies that only are good to do at a powwow in front of the people. Uh There's name giving. Uh my Indian name is [name given] that comes from a treaty signer of the Mikwunutunne band of the Tututni who signed a treaty in 1855
28:27 at Lower Oak Flats, uh just uh 500 yards up to where it runs into the Rogue River. Uh name givings happened in a long house gathering or at a powwow gathering. So you have those, those kinds of important things, feathers hit the ground. They have ceremonies to pick up
28:51 uh those feathers after they, after they fell. Uh Indian people use lots of parts of animals in their powwows and their outfits. The drum is made out from an animal hide and many parts of our Indian outfits.
29:14 Uh They have roaches and those are uh from the beaver and there's a little white part that's a deer tail. Uh, they use the bones. Traditional dancers have what we call eagle whistles. It's made from the wing bone of an eagle that they make this whistle. Uh,
29:39 you'll see men and women wear otter and mink around their braids. And, uh, you take like the otter. How many have ever watched, uh, otters play in the, in the creek or in the river with their young, they slide down these little mud slides and go splashing into the water and there'll be little r uh,
30:04 the water will be real shallow and riffles. And here are these mom and dads rolling down the, down the creek or the river with their little ones just having a ball. So the women, the men, they put out these otter hides around their braids because they know
30:27 some of the traits of the animals, the deer, the bear, the elk, the deer, you know, they, they, they wear deer hoofs around their ankles to make sound when they're dancing. They use bells when they use elk and deer hoofs to make a sound. Those things haven't changed. Our old people
30:51 understood our relationship here on earth and in almost all Indian prayers, you'll hear people acknowledge our creator and our responsibility to pro to use and to protect all the things the creator has given to us and spirit quest. A lot of people
31:15 go and they, they're looking how they can be tied to a certain animal. And what they're trying to do is tie themselves to a trait of that animal like the otter, to be playful, to be a good mother, to be a good father or to bear, to be ferocious and brave
31:38 deer agile. All of these animals have some traits that are very valuable for us to know about. But Indian people would look at and they would commit themselves to being, to living a life and having that trait and so on our outfit today, you can go to a powwow
32:02 and there may be dancers out there that have something, one part of their outfit that may be 200 years old passed down from generation to generation and there may be some new outfits, but there'll be many, many parts of animals in our outfits that
32:24 and they're there because of the traits of those animals. But it's also a commitment from us to be a certain way to be strong, to be good to be a good parent. So uh these outfits are, and you know, people call them outfits. I call them outfits and regalia, you know, and
32:48 we never call our outfits costumes because costumes are more like in plays where you're pretending to be something else, you know, so we don't call them costumes because we're not pretending to be something else when we're in our outfits and when we're dancing and
33:12 those are, and that, keeping the drum beat. When I was young, I used to kind of dance to my own drum. I guess I wasn't in dr- I wasn't in beat with the drum. I was out there having fun dancing hard, but I wasn't always in beat with the drum and I
33:35 was young. I didn't, see we didn't have competition powwows. I didn't see it was all that important. You know, my dad told me you keep and treat with that drum because that drum had a power and those drums were created for us.
33:58 A lot of people don't know it but the drum beats of Indian people, I mentioned all those kind of dancers. They all have their own drum beat for their style of dress. So we have a lot of different drum beats and our songs in this world. There's no other people that have
34:22 our kind of drum beats and our kinds of songs. And we've been singing these songs forever. We get new songs and people talk singers will tell you that they didn't compose those. They grabbed them, those songs are out there.
34:46 Somebody looks for a song lives a certain way that songs out there and they just grab it. They don't take credit for creating that song or composing that song. They just were able to grab it, bring it for the people because you dance for the people, you drum and sing for the people. And uh so
35:10 I got five minutes and I guess, uh, you know, outside of, uh, I didn't talk about all of the other Indian gatherings and the cultural gatherings and, uh, trading and, uh, they're just, you know, it's, if you want to gather some Indian people, you know, cook a big dinner and they'll all be there, you know,
35:30 and we eat together and we gather for a lot of different reasons, spiritual. Uh, so I just talked about, uh mostly powwows today. But, you know, a lot of our families started at powwows. A lot of marriages started at powwows. We got a lot of intertribal marriages in my two tribes.
35:54 I'm related to almost everybody in my two tribes. You know,
36:00 I always had my brothers and sisters and my aunties and uncles telling me who my cousins were, you know, and I guess when I got down to fifth cousins, I didn't have to worry anymore, but that age never matched, you know. So, uh this intermarriage is a good thing. You meet at
36:23 powwows, you meet people from other reservations and we, and we continue to keep a bloodline uh of Indian people because in a small tribe, uh that's not always easy to do so. And another purpose of our, of our powwows. Are there any questions? And, you know, I really enjoyed uh being here with you today. I know
36:47 I talked real fast but I guess I would just say when you say powwow. That is a way of life and you can't talk about a way of life. In an hour you can't because it's, it takes a lot longer. There's so many parts of it.
37:09 But I just wanted to tell you, my dad told me to keep beat with the drum with my feet because those drums and those songs were created for us and that they have power and the only way you're gonna get that power is to hit, hit your feet on the floor. The same kind of drumbeat. That's the only way that, that power gets from the drum to you
37:33 and gets to your heart is if you keep the same beat as a drum. So after that, I did everything I could to keep beat with that drum because I want those things that come from the drum to come to me where it should be. So powwows are fun. They're spiritual, they're important
37:58 and they're for everybody and you can get something if you come there sad sometime to a powwow hopefully you sit there and watch some little kids dancing and start feeling good and watch some bunch of family having fun. Uh, over there eating spam and commodity cheese, whatever, you know, you'll have, you'll feel better, you know. So, uh,
38:22 you know, powwows, uh, are for everybody and we enjoy them. I, uh certainly invite you to, uh, the two powwows from my family the second week in August in Siletz on Government Hill. It's a Friday, Saturday and Sunday powwow and at Grand Ronde here is the third week in August. Uh They're both great powwows.
38:47 So I don't know if you got time for questions or if any of you have any questions, I can bring the microphone around so everyone can hear. I should have brought a hand drum. We have one another part of uh powwows is 49ers after the big powwow and all the drums pick up and everybody leaves. There's young adults
39:08 that will go way away from the powwow grounds out in the field and they'll sing these 49er songs, old young people, teenagers. And a long time ago, the old people let them do that. There could be some drinking going on. But the old people, if they were over there singing because they circle dance, social dance
39:32 and they sing these crazy songs and have a good time. But the old people said, well, if they're over there, at least they're not in their cars driving around, you know, endangering themselves. They're right over there where we could hear them. But 49ers, they sing uh sad songs about girls and broken hearts and,
39:57 you know, real funny, real funny song. I should have brought a hand drum. I would have sung a couple 49ers songs for you made you cry. So if no one has any other questions, then please give Bob Tom a welcome applause. And at three o'clock, we're gonna have a Coyote Creek drum group coming in here.
40:21 No matter where you are around here, you're gonna hear them and know when to come back. So listen up.

Tent of Many Voices

Bob Tom on Powwows and Native American Dance

Bob Tom

Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde

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Bob Tom on Powwows and Native American Dance

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