More PowWow!

We had bought two-day passes to the Gathering of the Nations PowWow, but waited until late this afternoon to go back. We were fortunate this time and found parking in a lot just across the street from the Pit for $5 -- 1/2 the price of where we parked yesterday and about a half-mile closer. We went to the back of the arena to where the food and other vendors were set up. We had Indian tacos (made like a tostado, only with fry bread instead of a tortilla as the base) made New Mexico style with green chiles. Then we split another fry bread sprinkled with powdered sugar and cinnamon. It was almost as messy as eating beignets in New Orleans. With the breeze, the powdered sugar flew all over! We strolled through the big tents where vendors were selling everything Native American you could possibly think of: from jewelry to t-shirts; from drums to tanned hides; from cds to jackets.



We went back into the Pit and found seats (NOT an easy task!) in time for the evening Grand Entry. The parade of dancers was proceeded by a gentleman carrying a bald eagle on his wrist -

He had the bird trained to fly up every time he raised his arm --

Leading the Grand Entry Parade was an honored elder carrying the Eagle Staff --

And then came the dancers -- all 2678 of them! They just kept coming and coming...

There were some very different dancers wrapped in red and black robes with conical hats, much like the ones we've seen on our coastal tribes in Washington State --

We were told they were Canadians, but seeing the orca whale outlined in buttons on the back of this robe, I would wager they were from the west coast.



These are veterans dancing the honour gourd dance. Many of the veterans wore blue and red stoles. A blanket was placed in the middle of the floor and people kept coming down and throwing money on it during the dance.

These children were part of a dance troupe from the school where the reigning 2010 "Miss Indian World" teaches.

And this is the 2011 Miss Indian World who was crowned tonight. She is an Alaskan native and is actually wearing furs under those presentation blankets. The two ladies dancing immediately behind her are the runner-ups and dancing behind them are her family members. The ladies in the pink jackets are the Board Members who run the pageant.

This delightful lady is her grandmother, dancing in the typical calico dress worn by many Native women in Alaska --

This is the Lead Woman Dancer, dancing a traditional jingle dress dance --

Her solo dance preceded the jingle dress competition --

which was the last dancing we watched. We would have like to have stayed later and watched more of the competition dancing, but by this time it was already pretty late and we couldn't tolerate sitting on backless bleachers any longer...